RAMALLAH, West Bank — On Dec. 9, 2013, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington to begin work on the Bahrain canal under the sponsorship of the World Bank, to connect the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The canal aims at preventing the decrease in water levels suffered by the latter.
The first phase of the project was started by Jordan and Israel signing — in the absence of the PA, on Feb. 26, 2015 — an agreement to begin implementing the project through the establishment of a water desalination plant on the Red Sea, north of Jordan’s Aqaba, and transport saltwater by-products via a 200-kilometer (124-mile) canal to the Dead Sea.