Swimmers attempt 7-hour crawl across shrinking Dead Sea

EIN GEDI, Israel (AP) — Swimmers from around the world plunged into the salty waters of the Dead Sea on Tuesday to attempt a seven-hour swim across the fabled lake in a bid to draw attention to its environmental degradation.

The swimmers, who hail from Israel, the Palestinian territories and as far as New Zealand, South Africa and Denmark, wore special face masks to shield them from the briny water, which is painful to the eyes and can be deadly to ingest.