The Hebrew newspaper Yediot Ahronot revealed on Monday that the Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman had recently endorsed a budget allocated for the construction of a wall on the borders of the Gaza Strip.
The paper said that the budget will reach up to 3.34 billion shekels (1dollar=3.85 shekels) and the wall will stretch along the 65-km borderline between the Gaza Strip and the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
It pointed out that the wall will be constructed on the Gaza border and underground to prevent any “offensive tunnels” into the Israeli settlement communities surrounding the Gaza Strip.
The paper affirmed that construction work had started and is expected to be completed in two years noting that the project will include underground concrete barriers as well as smart technology to identify the tunnels.
An Israeli military official in the southern command stated that the new wall will not provide security by 100% adding that military forces will still be needed on the ground. However he said the project will meet a significant percentage of the security needs of the Israeli settlers.
Haim Jelin the Knesset member from Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party who lives in Eshkol settlement in the vicinity of Gaza Strip said that the wall is an essential step to eliminate Hamas’s “tunnel threat”.
