Original subtitles

I'm on a journey around the Mediterranean.

It's the sea that attracts around a third of world tourism.

The birthplace of civilisations...

Just look at that!

..where extraordinary wealth...

This one has got a helicopter on it.

..meets shocking poverty.

I take my flipping hat off to them, I really do.

Look at the scale of the destruction!

They are on the edge of the Med.

It is a sea of wild extremes.

Yes, yes! Look!

On this second part of my journey,

I am travelling around the eastern Mediterranean,

from the island of Cyprus,

across the sea to Lebanon

and on to Israel and Gaza.

It's a region of awesome beauty and extreme landscapes...

Look at that!

That's not where we're going? Yes. We are going there.

..torn by bitter divisions.

It's a fully active, combat-ready patrol. Yeah, yeah.

GUNSHOTS

My God, there's somebody living up here. Look.

Have you ever been down here? No.

In the eastern Med, ancient cultures are struggling to survive

in the face of daunting challenges.

This is technology, how you take money from the brain.

CHEERING

This isn't what you were expecting, was it?

I am up a mountain, on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean

and I'm starting this leg of my journey in Cyprus!

Look at this!

There's a ski lift here.

There is a ski resort in the mountains of Cyprus.

I had no idea.

The Mediterranean is a place of such extremes!

Part of the reason I wanted to come up here, into the mountains,

is because I think most of us think of Cyprus

as being a place for summer sun,

but there is a whole world of life up here,

well away from the beaches.

At the eastern end of the Mediterranean,

Cyprus has sat at the crossroads of civilisations, cultures

and great religions for centuries.

We're on our way to a village and life up here in the hills,

in the mountains, is said to revolve around three things,

God, goats and grappa.

Cyprus is a divided island.

Christian Greek Cypriots now live in the south,

with mainly Muslim Turkish Cypriots in the north.

In the south, I was going to see and stay with the head of a large,

proud family of Greek Cypriots, a goat farmer with a big character.

Michalis!

Simon, very nice to meet you.

We're going to walk up.

Here, here, here.

I'm impressed, Michalis! Look at that! Hey!

GOATS BLEAT

Come on, come on! Inside!

How many goats have you got?

This is quite deep, this is... Your roots are here.

After Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960,

there were disputes and then conflict between Turkish Cypriots

and then Greek Cypriots - even neighbours.

Is it OK to come in?

Come in, come in!

VOICEOVER: In 1974, Greek Cypriot generals

helped seize power on the island.

The Turkish Army then invaded the north,

ostensibly to protect Turkish Cypriots.

There was hand-to-hand and street-to-street fighting,

followed by the division of the island.

Relations between the two sides

are still the subject of heated debate.

Do you remember a time where Turkish Cypriots

and Greek Cypriots lived happily together?

We are now nearly... nearly four decades on from this,

it's more than four decades,

it's just unbelievable that this situation

is still existing today.

THEY ALL SING

SINGING CONTINUES

It's not just families where there is still disagreement.

I headed towards the capital, Nicosia.

It's a city with a physical split right down the middle.

So, this wall here marks part of the dividing line?

Yes, this is the Buffer Zone. And... Oh, my God, look!

A barricade at the end of the street!

That is unbelievable.

Nicosia is divided by a wall and the so-called green line.

A ceasefire, more than 40 years ago, left Nicosia split

between the Greek Cypriot half of the city

and the Turkish Cypriot zone.

In the middle is a no-man's land,

patrolled by a force of British UN peacekeepers.

Colonel Wildish, hello there.

Welcome to Ledra Palace Hotel. Thank you very much indeed.

Good to see you. Simon Reeve, nice to see you, too.

Thanks for agreeing to meet us. No problem at all.

Thank you very much, thank you.

VOICEOVER: Colonel Tim Wildish and his men

oversee the abandoned Buffer Zone,

and help keep the peace in Europe's last divided city.

This is one of seven official crossings,

north to south, south to north. North, south...

North, south, and this is the patrol track,

which runs through the Buffer Zone.

Ricardo?

We're just going to...

So, this is the Olympus Hotel on the left-hand side. Right.

Winston Churchill stayed here several times,

it was the only five-star hotel at the time.

It's seen happier days, hasn't it? Seen better days, yeah.

As has this part of the city. As has all of this.

These buildings have just been abandoned and cleared out.

Ahead, we've got a Turkish Cypriot outpost, is that right?

Are we allowed to film that, or you'd rather we didn't?

No, don't film that, if you wouldn't mind. OK.

What's the closest that the two sides along the line?

It goes down to about two to three metres in places,

so you get tensions, you get low-level problems

with discipline, throwing stones at each other, that kind of thing.

Stone-throwing sounds like little stones,

but it can be some pretty big rocks,

launched from catapult-type things.

Want we don't want is some sort of low-level incident

rapidly escalating into something that gets out of control,

and that's one of the reasons that we're here,

to keep things under control, keep the status quo.

This is actually quite a huge area of the island

that is in the Buffer Zone,

something like 3% of all of Cyprus is inside the Buffer Zone.

My God, there's somebody living up here! Look!

You can somebody putting their washing out.

Yasou! Yeah.

How long have you lived here?

Have you ever been down here?

No, no, no.

You've never stood down here? No.

What if you dropped something down here?

We are calling to the UN and we are asking for help!

You would have to ring the United Nations for assistance? Yeah, yeah.

Do you think there will be a solution,

do you think there will be peace? No.

No, immediately, you don't? No, no. Why?

Because, I don't know,

Turkish people and Greek people,

they hate each other for no reason,

because before 30 years or more.

VOICEOVER: I was stunned to see this divide.

We've got the UN on patrol again.

Turkey says, perhaps with some justification,

it invaded the island to protect Turkish Cypriots,

but the Turks stayed.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled the invasion

and subsequent occupation

of the northern third of the island illegal.

Decades of talks have done nothing to resolve this bizarre situation,

on an island in the European Union.

I crossed the border to find out more

about Turkish occupied northern Cyprus.

Ezra? Hi, Ezra!

Simon Reeve, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too! Welcome.

Thank you very much for coming to see us.

Are you going to show me around? Sure, let's go. Is that OK? Yeah.

Thank you.

Ezra is a Turkish Cypriot.

Her family was one of thousands, from both sides,

uprooted by the conflict.

My parents are from the south of Cyprus,

and they had to flee,

they had to move to Kyrenia in 1974.

So, they came north, why?

There was a war.

Greek Cypriot Army attacked Turkish Cypriots.

I mean, there was a lot of fighting and people were scared.

There was conflict and people feared, not just... For their lives.

For their lives? Definitely, and there have been a lot of people

who went missing, who died, on both sides.

Because of the occupation,

the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state is under an international embargo,

which blocks its business, financial, sporting,

cultural and trade connections with most of the planet.

We feel that we are cut off from the whole world.

Everything has to go through Turkey,

from flights to telephone lines

to postal services.

It sounds like it must dominate life here?

It does, it does dominate life.

Of course, we have had a big population transfer, too.

Turkish people who accepted to come and settle here

were offered two years of salary,

a house and agricultural land. Wow.

So, they were offered incentives to come and settle in Cyprus,

and, of course, this changes the political will of the community.

It takes away from the culture.

So, there's almost been a degree of social engineering, then?

Definitely, definitely there has been.

And it still continues.

Turkish Governments have encouraged hundreds of thousands

of Turks to settle here, and many think they're trying to link

Turkish Cyprus more closely to Turkey.

Settlers are now thought to be more than half the population.

Many Turkish Cypriots feel they're more religious.

The Turkish Government is paying to open huge new mosques for them.

The people who came to Cyprus from Turkey

were more from the conservative rural areas of Turkey,

who were looking for a better life.

So, you got that cultural clash right from the beginning.

And the feeling is like they are pushing Turkishness on us.

When you push it in my face, then the reaction you get

is the exact opposite.

Turkey seems to be encouraging a more traditional

Turkish religious and patriotic culture here.

Many Turkish Cypriots aren't happy -

they say they're more liberal and laid-back.

We're going to a village

that's still very strongly a Turkish Cypriot village,

and I'm going to meet the head of the village, the Mukhtar.

This is proper agricultural area,

not cars parked outside people's houses but tractors!

Look at his place! Merhaba.

Merhaba!

Very nice to meet you, sir.

Wow, look at your place, your office here! My office.

How is that specifically Turkish Cypriot?

Not specific to one side or the other?

From his village HQ, Mukhtar Omer Merakli

is leading a campaign to preserve traditional Turkish Cypriot culture

and stop it being overwhelmed by Turkey.

He's become a bit of an online celebrity.

You're on Facebook here! Yes, my Facebook.

This is your Facebook page. Look, it's you, you're on a donkey!

Is he always checking Facebook?

The Mukhtar gave me a speedy tour of the village.

We're going off road.

This is like a rally! It's a rally car!

We made it up the hill!

All right, let's have a look.

Unlike much of northern Cyprus,

Turkish settlers have yet to populate this area in large numbers,

and it seems the Mukhtar would like to keep it that way.

When you look out at the village, what are you most proud of about it?

What does that mean?

As if the divide between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots

wasn't bad enough, there are now tensions in the north

between Cypriots and settlers.

On Cyprus, there seems little prospect of resolution.

There it is.

The Mediterranean!

Looking particularly beautiful.

It's the very size and shape of the Mediterranean

that makes it so extraordinary.

Wide enough to support countless empires and civilisations,

yet narrow or small enough to ensure they come into plenty of contact,

and often conflict.

Radically different cultures and religions have always lived,

existed, in close proximity around the Mediterranean,

often they've thrived together.

But here, now, there's a bitter divide.

Cyprus has long been the Mediterranean gateway

to the Middle East.

I headed to Lebanon, just 200 miles away.

In recent years, as the Middle East has plunged into war and chaos,

Lebanon has been a haven of relative calm,

even though it's another country with a history

of religious and ethnic division.

Lebanon is a small country but it's a real melting pot

of something like 18 different sects and religions,

all living together.

The ultimate Mediterranean mix.

Look at this sight.

Man and dog!

Raja! Welcome to Lebanon!

Thank you very much indeed, mate. This is Sam.

He's wandering around behind the car! Hello, Sam.

Sam, this is Simon. Are you coming with us, as well?

Yeah, he will spend the week with us!

Excellent, fantastic.

Thank you. Agh!

Today, we'll discover Lebanon...

..but in another way. Another way?

Yeah, not walking and not driving.

You've got just this sort of cheeky look on your face

that is causing me a small degree of concern.

What have you got planned? I'm smiling because I'm happy.

Welcome to the take-off, Simon.

What have I let myself in for...?

My guide, Raja Saade, was about to give me my most spectacular view yet

of the beautiful Med.

Not good.

This is much, erm, higher

and more vertical

than I imagined...and want.

Simon. Yes. Keep running. Keep running, OK, keep running. OK?

Even if you feel you can't run, you keep running, OK?

Keep running. OK, yes, boss.

Are we ready? Yes!

One, two, go!

You have to run more. More, more, more. Run.

Keep running, keep running, keep running.

Agh!

Very nice day.

Oh, my God!

We're flying over Lebanon!

And it is incredible!

Very good.

Oh, this is blissful!

Blissful and...and nervy and wonderful and...

..and a long way down!

This is the eagle eyes, you know,

you see, we can see the whole Lebanon.

I see Beirut, down the coast.

You see why I like my country? Look, Simon, around.

This is just stunning.

Look at Harissa, you see?

It's Virgin Mary, very famous in Lebanon.

Agh!

Gently, gently.

Looks as though we're about to land into the hotel!

Agh!

What do you want me to do? OK, you can stand up. Stand...?

Ready to run, OK?

I'm ready!

Remember, ready to run, OK. I'm ready. Ready to run.

Agh!

OK, stand up.

Very nice.

Oh, my goodness! Congratulations. Bravo.

The best landing ever! Nicely done.

Well, not bad anyway!

Like more than a third of the population,

Raja is a Lebanese Christian.

When it was founded, the country was a predominantly

Christian nation.

Raja is an adventure tour guide in Lebanon.

To get more of a sense of the country he loves,

and see the ancient roots of Christianity

in this area of the Mediterranean, we headed up into the mountains.

We'll be halfway now between mountains and... And sea.

And sea. Perfect.

We are just a short distance from the Mediterranean

and we have climbed straight up into the mountains

and ahead of us is a giant snowy peak,

straight from the Swiss Alps.

Just inland from the Mediterranean,

this rugged mountain range stretches the length of the country.

We were heading to the Qadisha, or Holy Valley,

a sacred area for Lebanon's Christians

and one of Raja's favourite places to hike.

Look at this!

This is...

This is incredible.

Yes, Sam, look! Look at the view!

Wow.

You see, this is the valley.

Raja was taking me to an abandoned monastery deep in the valley.

Look, from here, you can have a look. You see?

That's not where we are going. Yes, we're going there.

We'll sleep here tonight.

And this is the monastery of Mar Aboun, the first Christian,

the first Maronite choose them to live.

This is why they were happy in this valley,

because it's full of caves.

Maronite Christians are an ancient Christian sect.

It's thought they were originally driven away from the Mediterranean

and up here into the mountains,

where they found seclusion and safety.

Millions of them have since fled into exile abroad,

now living in the Americas and Europe.

Look at this.

It's completely epic.

Built inside a cave, this Maronite monastery

is thought to have stood for 1,000 years.

Hey, why were you saying we have to be careful with our lights?

We can have hyenas. "Hyenas"? You're pulling my leg.

No, really. There are no hyenas here.

I can show you some pictures, for sure there... Seriously?

Yeah, there are hyenas. Oh, my goodness' sake.

Every winter when there is a lot of snow,

they found hyena in the village, they come to the village.

Right. My goodness.

If you meet a hyena, you don't have to look to his eyes.

Because if you look to his eyes you can't move after.

Do the stories you have of hyenas end well for the humans?

There is no story with well... No story ends well!

Yeah! Bloody hell!

Do we have any sharpened spears or anything?

I've slept in some strange places,

but this takes the biscuit!

DISTANT YELPING OUTSIDE

What is that noise?

He's really spooked me by talking about the hyenas!

YELPING CONTINUES

There was quite a lot of howling in the night.

I can't wait to get outside.

This is going to be the best view for morning ablutions,

possibly ever!

The Middle East was the birthplace of Christianity.

But today, the persecution of Christians across the region

is a forgotten human-rights tragedy.

100 years ago, one in seven people in the Middle East were Christians.

Now, it's just one in 20.

Lebanon has long been one of the safest places

in the Middle East to be a Christian.

Now, it's becoming a sanctuary.

Brutal civil wars and targeted attacks in Iraq and Syria

have resulted in their Christian populations collapsing.

Thousands of Christian refugees from across the region

have fled to safety here in Lebanon.

Raja took me to meet one Christian community with a defiant message.

Oh, my goodness!

That is a big cross!

That's a tower! Yes.

Can you actually go up inside it? Yes. That is a very big statement.

Father, hello. Hello.

Lovely to meet you, Simon Reeve, hello.

Father Charbel Khachan.

Very nice to meet you.

Oh, flippin' heck.

My vertigo's going to get a workout here!

VOICEOVER: This is said to be the largest

inhabitable cross in the world.

OK...

Oh!

Oh, no, I don't like this!

I don't like this, I'll just stay just here, I think.

Sadly, I don't have your faith!

In any sense!

Sam!

Sam, don't go near the edge!

Sam is OK, don't...

Just be careful!

Overlooking the Mediterranean,

the giant cross, 60 metres high,

is going to house a church and a prayer centre

for the Christian community.

How would you describe the situation at the moment for Christians

in the Middle East?

This community might be staying, but elsewhere in the Middle East,

Christianity is facing collapse.

Church leaders are starting to wonder

whether Christianity could vanish from the region of its birth.

I continued my journey around the Mediterranean

as Raja drove me towards the south of Lebanon.

I can see what looks like a big military checkpoint up ahead.

These checkpoints actually have been quite a surprise to me,

I think they're a constant reminder that there is fragility here,

there is risk, there is instability still in Lebanon.

We're heading into the territory controlled by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is a militant Shi'ite Muslim group

that Israel, the United States,

European countries and Arab countries, as well,

say is one of the biggest terrorist groups in the world.

Hezbollah is backed by Iran.

Here in Lebanon, Hezbollah controls an area

bordering Israel to the south.

In 2006, Hezbollah fought a brief, but bloody, war with Israel,

a conflict which still defines this area.

Wow.

So, that's a huge poster, a martyr poster, basically,

with the faces of almost entirely young men who have died

fighting for Hezbollah.

And here you see three, basically, three young guys. Look at them!

So, look, we're coming to,

so, "Hezbollah Resistance Museum".

To mark what they say are their victories against Israel,

Hezbollah have spent a reported $20 million

building a strange tourist attraction

that's been described as a terrorist Disneyland.

Oh, my God.

So, this is what they call the Abyss.

The Abyss proudly displays the spoils of war

captured from Israeli forces and their allies.

I think what's really striking about this site

is just the scale of it, and what it really says to me

is that obviously this isn't just a small militant group,

Hezbollah is now a rich and powerful

militant military organisation.

A mini army! They have their own tank divisions, for goodness' sake!

In Lebanon, they have become like a state within a state.

Hezbollah also run hospitals, schools and welfare.

Many people in Lebanon think they stand up against the might

of Israel and describe Hezbollah as the "resistance".

Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are again escalating,

and, tragically, both sides have said they're ready for another war.

So, this is the divide between Lebanon and Israel.

We've got our United Nations armoured truck here.

We're going to pull over and have a look.

At a viewpoint, there's a group of United Nations soldiers here

playing cards or something next to a poster of the leader of Hezbollah,

this is just surreal.

This is a really, I suppose, defining feeling

and point for me travelling around the Mediterranean.

I cannot believe we've gone from the green line dividing Cyprus

to the blue line dividing Lebanon and Israel.

And on both of them, the United Nations is keeping neighbours apart.

There are tensions elsewhere in the Med,

but this is one of the world's most dangerous flash points.

It is perhaps the most extreme of all Mediterranean borders.

There is no way of crossing here from Lebanon into Israel.

So, to continue my journey around the Mediterranean,

I've got to fly to Jordan,

and from there, to Tel Aviv on the coast of Israel.

Surrounded by often hostile countries on land,

and with few open border crossings to its neighbours,

Israel is almost an island in the Middle East.

The Mediterranean is the country's main connection

to the outside world.

Perhaps more than any other country around the sea,

Israel relies on the Mediterranean for its survival.

The colonel commands the Ashdod Navy fleet.

We have patrol boats that patrol 24 hours a day, 365 a year.

Patrolling your patch of the Mediterranean? Yeah, yeah.

It's going to get crowded in here, isn't it?

Before you are going to the sea,

you're checking everything and you see that everything is in order

and it's correct and it's OK, and then you can go on your mission.

So, it's a fully active, combat-ready patrol? Yeah. OK.

Now finish everything and check everything

and now we can go out to the sea. OK.

This is what we are doing.

And you can see the big ships that are coming in and out

to bring all the stuff to Israel.

Israel, it's like an island.

Because all around of us,

we have, most of the countries

we don't have a relationship with them,

and then we have to use the sea

and this is the reason that the Mediterranean

is so important to Israel.

With most of its land borders closed,

an incredible 99% of Israel's imports by volume

arrive via the Mediterranean.

Defending three key commercial ports has long been a major part

of the Navy's mission.

But now, it's what's under the Mediterranean that is a new focus

for Israeli security.

We have not only the trade through the Mediterranean,

now we have the electricity, you have the energy.

For a long time, Israel's been relatively starved of energy.

In a part of the world that is completely awash with oil,

Israel has always been the country that didn't have the oil reserves.

Now, in the last few years,

underneath the eastern end of the Mediterranean

have been discovered some of the largest

remaining gas reserves on the planet.

And that's a complete game-changer for the country.

From a security point of view, of course, the problem is,

these rigs are like sitting ducks.

Defence experts say the rigs are vulnerable to attacks from rockets,

divers and even remote-controlled submarines.

The Israeli Navy has deployed countermeasures,

including missile systems, undersea sensors

and even the first operational combat unmanned drone boat.

On this ship, they have guns, they have cameras,

they have radars, all this stuff,

and they control the ship from the shore.

Israel and Israelis have really led the world

in airborne drone technology and now, they're extending

the same sort of technology to the sea.

Look at the weapon on the top there.

It looks like Star Trek stuff, doesn't it?

This was a live-fire training exercise.

The Israeli military have faced criticism and condemnation

for using excessive force on land, but also at sea.

It's looking for a target or a terrorist boat.

And then when he will find it,

he will go and he will fire it on...

He will fire first of all in the air and then on the target.

RAPID GUNFIRE

Goodness me.

That's really rather extraordinary.

It really does feel like the future of war.

In horrific...

and a sophisticated way.

Israel was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Its early years and often the decades since

were marked by conflict and the threat of annihilation.

In response, Israel invested heavily

in the military and innovation.

I suppose, the first thing you think when you come here

for the first time is,

this wasn't quite what I was expecting!

Personally, I've been raised my entire life,

the Arab-Israeli conflict has been just endless.

Here, this is party town!

Israel the best!

In Tel Aviv, the problems of the Middle East

can seem a long way away.

Israel has become one of the most crowded countries in the world.

And its population is likely to

at least double in the next few decades.

To face the challenge,

Israelis are using the Mediterranean Sea and cutting-edge inventions.

It is very green here.

Which is weird, because it hasn't rained very much

this winter in Israel.

But the grass and the crops are still growing.

There's no drought here.

And that is because the Israelis have learned

to make drinking water out of sea water.

The Sorek Desalination Plant,

right next to the Mediterranean,

is the biggest of its kind in the world.

So, we take the water from the sea

directly from the Mediterranean, it is, in distance,

about two kilometres from here inside of the sea.

So, you have a big pipe sticking out into the sea?

Yeah, you can see this pipe, this is the size of the pipe,

the big one, you can see it.

Just a few years ago, Israel teetered on the edge

of the worst drought in more than 900 years.

It faced catastrophe.

But innovators like Dr Boris Liberman helped

turn the Mediterranean into Israel's salvation.

Today, five huge plants like this line Israel's coastline,

producing an astonishing 2 billion litres of fresh water every day.

So, this is where the magic happens.

Yeah, if you like!

It's absolutely enormous!

Where is everybody?

It's hard to understate the importance of these plants.

Clean water is liquid gold.

Israel, one of the driest countries on Earth,

now has more water than it needs.

OK, this is the place we can try water.

This is the water.

You see, I immediately feel like I should turn them off!

Doctor, what are you doing?

You cannot run all the taps!

Keep it, keep it, keep it! What on earth are you doing?

Keep it, keep it, keep it! Take a glass.

Even in Britain, where we have a fair old amount of rain...

Plenty of water.

..we have to conserve water.

You can't do this in the Middle East! You can!

But now you can. You can.

It does taste like mineral water.

It is, it is high-quality mineral water.

You can start bottling this!

Yeah, but it is not our business to make bottles,

our business is to make the mass production.

Let's go, guys.

Follow me!

In the past, large-scale desalination,

turning salty sea water into drinking water,

required huge amounts of energy and polluting chemicals.

There are still environmental costs

but this new process is energy-efficient

and almost entirely chemical-free. Oh, my goodness, look.

It is absolutely natural sea water.

Maybe we will later see some fishes or crabs can be in the water.

You really can, look. There you can see one fish. Yes.

One, two... There's lots. You see?

So what will happen to the fish?

During backwash process from this pool,

they can go back to the sea.

Turning sea water into drinking water is...

There's something quite biblical about it.

It's something that humans have never really done

in large quantities before.

Yeah, the problem technologically is solved,

we can do it and we can do it in very large quantities.

And we can do it for relatively low cost.

This is also, I think, an example of Israeli innovation,

which is something very special about the country.

Israel is made from the brain.

This is technology, how you take money from the brain.

You have to know how to do it.

And there are a lot of money inside of the brain.

While other wealthy Middle East nations

have relied on oil for prosperity,

Israel has relied on innovation technology,

one of Israel's biggest exports.

It's helped make the country wealthy.

By contrast, my final destination on this leg of my journey

is one of the poorest places in the region.

I took a train south.

I was heading to the Gaza Strip,

a tiny stretch of land along the Mediterranean

around 25 miles long.

Nearly two million Palestinians live there.

It was the most dangerous part of the journey.

This is actually part of the train station that is a bomb shelter

or a rocket shelter, because of missiles launched from Gaza.

Look at the doors here, it's unbelievable.

Anyway, so, I've got to go through loads of security now,

we're going to have to stop filming

and then we'll pick up and start again when we're inside Gaza.

I cross one of the world's most heavily fortified borders.

So, this is a long walk through a cage,

a caged passageway,

that takes us from the very modern,

pretty wealthy state of Israel,

to the much poorer and densely packed Gaza Strip.

I've never been through a border crossing quite like this.

It is extraordinary...

..in every possible sense.

And, my God, you look across here,

look at the barrier that encircles Gaza.

It's a very forbidding, foreboding place

to walk towards, quite frankly.

You know, there's a dehumanisation of the people who live here,

the whole process makes you feel like you're entering

the cage of the wild animals.

Westerners are at risk of kidnap and shooting in Gaza,

but also from being caught up in an Israeli military strike.

Our crew vehicle had some special modifications.

We have to have, while we're here,

the back of the vehicle,

well, all the sides, every part of the vehicle,

is heavily armoured.

You've got this armoured window

here that goes there.

Then this thick, solid armour goes across...

..and then the outer shell closes.

And that is how you feel safe.

At least, when you're in the car.

So, we're now in Gaza proper. We are now in Gaza.

So this is Rushdi here.

Rushdi is going to be our guide in Gaza.

It's the most bizarre thing, crossing.

Of course, they keep calling Gaza as the biggest open-air prison.

Which is true because it's closed from four sides.

So, Israel is calling this strip of land, it's like a hostile entity.

Since elections in 2006,

Gaza has been controlled by Hamas,

a militant Islamic group considered terrorists by Israel

and many Western governments.

It's not the only militant group here.

That's the black flag flying there of...

Is that Hamas or something else?

It's Islamic Jihad.

We've just gone past an Islamic Jihad checkpoint?!

It's not a checkpoint, it's like military compound. Bloody hell.

Is this a safe...?

This isn't a safe place.

They operate in this area because it's not far from the border.

So, they always try to be ready for an Israeli escalation or...

Checkpoint ahead. Put the cameras down. Cameras down.

He wants to see what you have been recording.

We've been stopped at a checkpoint, they've taken our cameras out.

They're being serious about this.

This is not Islamic Jihad people. Who is this? They are Hamas. Hamas.

They are the border police...force.

Hamas Border Force.

OK, well, that's...

I'm actually slightly relieved we've been stopped by Hamas.

OK.

Since 2006, Gaza has endured one Palestinian civil war,

three wars between Hamas and Israel,

ten years of strict rule by Hamas

and blockade by Israel and Egypt.

This has all crippled the economy.

For how long you can struggle?

For how long you have to find a way

to produce power and to buy clean water?

This is basic in any part of the world.

You don't have to worry about

electricity or water or the safety of your people.

Israelis and Palestinians have endured endless cycles of violence.

Here, militants can fire rockets into Israel,

Israel can attack with overwhelming force.

Weeks of conflict here in 2014 between Israel and Palestinians

left 2,000 civilians dead,

including an estimated 500 children.

18,000 homes were destroyed.

Israel restricts the supply of many building materials

like cement into Gaza,

Israel says, to prevent Hamas building tunnels for attacks.

But engineering graduate Majd Mashharawi has invented

an ingenious way to help rebuild in Gaza.

So, welcome to our factory. Right.

And so what are you doing here?

I'm doing building blocks!

I call it green cake.

"Green cake"? Yes.

And what is green cake?

Green cake is...

It's a building block, or a brick,

made out of ashes mainly.

I figured out that building blocks in Gaza...

They depend 100% on importing the materials from Israel,

and it's too much, because, you know,

Gaza is under blockade since 2005,

2006, and that means we have to depend 100% on the other side.

So, it's... We have to create our self-sufficient community.

By inventing the world's first building block

made from recycled coal and wood ash,

Majd has avoided using anything restricted by the Israeli blockade.

So, while we've been talking,

your noisy brickmaking machine was working. Yes.

But... And I thought we'd be able to get over there to have a look at it

but the guys have just moved it to one side.

This is one of the problems for us here, which is electricity.

We have just four hours of electricity a day.

Four hours? Yes.

So, it makes...even the life harder.

You want two blocks? We'd love to see two blocks, yes.

Is that possible?

So, you've got six minutes of electricity left?

Yes. Can you make two blocks in that time?

Can we see?

THEY CHATTER IN OWN LANGUAGE

OK, here comes the... Yes. OK.

Right, here's a rich mix. Exactly.

For green cake. Yes.

I love that you call it "green cake".

They think it's a cooking project.

It comes out from the side.

They put it down here and then it comes out.

What are you laughing about?

ALL GIGGLE

It's OK!

We know you just did this to show us.

Everybody's laughing about the state of your brick.

They want to repeat it. Oh, my goodness. OK.

Oh, look, he's proud.

He's embarrassed about the state of the bricks that have come.

He saying, "They shouldn't be like this."

It was just a quick demonstration.

See? Oh!

APPLAUSE

There we go.

Now everyone is happy. Look at the guys up here, as well...!

These are good quality bricks.

You're happy now?

After it dries, it became even nicer.

It's OK.

Come on...

What do these bricks mean to you?

It means hope.

Yes, you can't imagine how my life changed after this.

When I got opportunities to stay outside forever,

I cannot live having happy life

while my people are suffering inside.

You've had the chance to leave Gaza

and live somewhere else. Yes. And you've chosen to stay?

Yes, and it was very hard decision for me.

People around me said, "You're crazy if you want to go back."

But I left for the reason to help my people, so I have to come back.

And the green cake, it's not just hope for me,

it's hope for many, many, many people

in the same faculty of engineering who feel that,

yes, we can make it one day.

Your dream will come true one day.

And this is the idea.

Majd's invention is helping to rebuild Gaza

and create vital jobs.

But the blockade here has devastated Gaza's economy.

Gaza now has among the highest unemployment rates in the world,

and it's believed most of its people survive on less than $2 a day.

This is the Gaza harbour.

There are the fisherman ports.

There are a lot of boats, aren't there? There are.

They're mostly in harbour.

THEY EXCHANGE GREETINGS

Gaza is an ancient Mediterranean port.

For centuries, people here

have depended on what the sea can provide.

But today, Gaza's fishing industry is in crisis.

It's thought less than half of Gaza's fishermen

are still putting out to sea.

Across the Mediterranean, fish numbers are in steep decline.

Here, fishermen face additional challenges.

You can see it stretching behind us. It's already a big old chunk of net.

Interesting to see what they get.

I can hear something in the air.

What the hell is that? Israeli drone.

What, like a Predator? Yes. It's day and night.

It's all day and night, it's buzzing above our heads.

Yeah.

A missile-armed drone flies day and night around?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's one, two, and a third one

I can't quite see at the moment.

But there's definitely three

up above our heads, just circling ominously.

It's really very intimidating.

And just frightening, frankly.

Look, for young people in Gaza,

the only thing they know about the Israelis

is that they are the occupier, who came in tanks

and aeroplanes and bombed Gaza.

You don't sound very hopeful for the future.

The economic situation is hard.

And people are losing hope.

They don't have jobs, they don't have money, they don't have...

The poverty is very high, the unemployment is more than 60%.

There's going to be an explosion, I think.

But where, I don't know. When, I don't know.

But the possible of war, I think it's 50%.

50/50.

THEY SING IN ARABIC

Rajab, are you pulling in fish for your family?

You just pulled absolutely nothing out.

This part of the Mediterranean is completely empty.

What does the future hold for you? Can you carry on fishing?

Can you carry on like this?

We weren't able to verify Rajab's account of the incident.

The Israeli Navy says it always fires warning shots

before opening fire on fishing boats

that cross out of their authorised fishing area of the Mediterranean.

The situation here is utterly shocking,

and maddening.

So much about the Arab-Israeli conflict is about picking a side,

and, personally, I refuse to.

My heart breaks for the suffering

of the Jewish people throughout history.

My heart breaks for the suffering of the Palestinians.

So many opportunities for real, lasting peace

have been lost here.

And we see two sides that seem, in many ways,

to be moving further apart, not closer together.

On the next leg of my journey around the Mediterranean,

I'll meet the sisters taking a stand against the Sicilian Mafia...

..and the last survivors of a vanishing culture.

Look at this! The whole thing's moving. Well done, mate.