The crumbling yellowish lighthouse and surrounding sea wall tower over the estuary, dwarfing a small marble memorial erected in memory of British and Australian troops.

In 1917, these troops crossed over the-then much wider, deeper and faster flowing river, ousting the holed-up Ottoman army.

The mound holds the remains of a stronghold from biblical times and in an excavation first undertaken in 1937 — between the tower and the marble memorial — the remains of two Iron Age fortresses were unearthed.

The promontory is known as Tel Kudadi and sits in the shadow of the Reading power station, built in 1938 during the British Mandate period and named after Daniel Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquis of Reading and chairman of the Israel Electric Corporation.

Part of the mound was severely damaged during the construction of the power station, but the importance of the site for any peoples — at any time in history — that needed to protect themselves from potential invaders is quite obvious.

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