Most Pkak, Steel bridge in Hula Valley, Israel.
Most Pkak, officially Gesher Sh'n, carries Road 918 across the Jordan River at the southern outlet of the Hula Valley. Two high walls of crisscrossing steel lattice flank a paved two-lane roadway marked by yellow edge lines, and a solid panel on the left bears diagonal black-and-white hazard stripes. The metal members are a dull tan or weathered greenish-grey; beyond the far end the bridge opens onto low grass with dry hills behind.
Before the bridge, a natural barrier at the lake's southern outlet slowed the Jordan's flow; geologists attribute it to the Korazim block uplift, not basalt. During the 1950s Hula drainage, an iron-beam dam under the future bridge held water high for floating excavators. On 30 October 1957 a crane pulled out the beams, draining the lake and marshes southward. The Engineering Corps then erected a Bailey bridge, replaced in 2008 and rebuilt as a two-way crossing in 2011.
The name Pkak means "cork" or "plug" in Hebrew, recalling the natural barrier that once held back the Hula Lake at its southern outlet. The bridge's official name, Gesher Shin, honours members of the Israel–Syria Armistice Committee, who often came under Syrian fire. Until 2011 traffic crossed in a single lane, alternating directions.
The bridge carries Route 918, the eastern north-south road of the Hula Valley, about 17 km from the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee and 2 km southeast of Hulata. It links the two banks of the Jordan, turning north on the eastern side toward Kibbutz Gonen at the foot of the Golan Heights. Since 2011 it has been two-way; before that traffic crossed in alternating directions on a single lane.
The bridge's Hebrew name, Gesher HaPkak, means "the plug bridge", after a natural barrier that once held back the Hula lake waters at this spot. The official name Gesher Shan honours the Israeli–Syrian armistice committee members, whose initials form the word shan.
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