Beaches in Israel

Two hundred kilometres of Mediterranean coast, almost all of it sand, plus short frontages on the Red Sea at Eilat and the Dead Sea, which is not a sea. The Mediterranean beaches are municipal infrastructure used daily rather than holiday destinations, with lifeguards, free showers and designated beaches — religious, accessible, dog — that are marked and taken seriously. Swimming outside lifeguard hours is prohibited rather than discouraged, and rip currents near breakwaters are the main hazard. Eilat's Red Sea reef is small, heavily used and carefully managed. The Dead Sea is receding by more than a metre a year. Tel Aviv's promenade runs fourteen kilometres from Jaffa to the port and is the country's most-used public space. Rosh Hanikra at the Lebanese border has sea grottoes cut into white chalk cliffs, and the Mediterranean beaches at Caesarea sit beside a Roman harbour and an aqueduct running along the sand.