Israel plans triple-fencing of Gaza after pullout
Reuters
Date: 07-28-05
URIM, Israel (Reuters) - Israel is rushing to complete a three-layer-deep barrier of fences and walls on its border with Gaza to keep Palestinian infiltrators out after it pulls out of the territory, military officials said on Thursday.
The army insists that, unlike Israel's internationally condemned West Bank barrier, the new project will not cut into Palestinian land. But the Palestinian Authority said such Israeli measures could keep Gaza sealed up like a giant prison.
The plan calls for adding two new fences parallel to the border fence that already surrounds the Gaza Strip and putting up seven-metre (23-foot)-high concrete walls in several places, a senior official said. He put the cost at $220 million (125 million pounds).
Israel is beefing up its border defences to compensate for losing its military presence in Gaza after it removes all 21 Jewish settlements from the occupied strip in mid-August.
Security officials worry that even after the withdrawal, Gaza militants will try to infiltrate gunmen and suicide bombers into the Jewish state and fire rockets across the border.
"Our purpose is to protect our citizens and soldiers. We have seen ... that we need something other than the existing fence to have security," the senior official told reporters.
He said, however, that even the triple fencing of Gaza might not be enough to stop militant attacks, and the army might have to mount incursions back into Gaza after the pullout. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has billed the withdrawal as "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.
"Instead of building bridges with the Palestinians, Israel insists on building walls and fences of suffocation," said Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Echoing Palestinian concerns, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week the United States wanted to make sure Israel did not keep Gaza isolated after its withdrawal.
LESSONS FROM LEBANON
The military official said Israel had learned lessons from its Lebanon withdrawal in 2000, when it left a single fence line where the army has clashed regularly with Hizbollah guerrillas.
The army is putting up two new fences that will extend about 60 km (37 miles) along its entire border with Gaza, he said.
One, made of metal and razor wire, is being installed a few dozen metres (yards) closer to the Gaza boundary line than the existing electronic fence, the official said.
The other, embedded with sensors and equipped with surveillance cameras, watchtowers and remote-control machinegun emplacements, will lie 70 to 150 metres east of the existing border fence on the Israeli side, he said.
A one-km (half-mile)-long wall will be erected on Israel's border with north Gaza and two smaller walls will be built where Israeli towns are vulnerable to Palestinian gunfire, he said.
Israel has said it will keep control of Gaza's air and sea space after the pullout for security reasons, although troops are expected to leave the boundary with Egypt.
Palestinians welcome any withdrawal but fear Israel is trading tiny Gaza, where 8,500 settlers live isolated from 1.4 million Palestinians, for a tighter hold on the occupied West Bank, where the majority of 240,000 settlers live.
The World Court has declared Israel's West Bank barrier illegal for intruding on occupied land. Israel says the planned 600-km (370-mile)-long structure keeps out suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a grab for land they claim for a state.
"The new fence is in our own territory," the senior official said of the Gaza barrier. He said the fencing would be finished by October and all of the infrastructure by mid-2006.
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