Israel to build underground wall
Israel unveiled plans for an underground border wall around Gaza Thursday, which military officials said would stop Hamas burrowing into its territory.
A $860 million subterranean concrete barrier will run for 64 kilometres along the entire border, the first of its kind in the world.
In the last three months, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have destroyed three tunnels into Israel from Gaza. A senior IDF official said he was confident that once the barrier was complete, tunnels would no longer pose a threat. “That will be it,” he said.
The barrier is expected to be completed within two years, and nearly five kilometres have already been constructed. Underground sensors will detect future efforts to tunnel into Israel, while a 9-metre-high fence will prevent overground crossings.
Wary of tipping off enemies, Israeli military officials were reticent to discuss particulars concerning the barrier’s tunnel detection capabilities, or precisely how far into the earth the wall goes.
“It’s deep enough,” a senior Israeli military official said. Cranes hoisted 25-meter-long rebar cages into the air, and the official said “several get welded together” to form the concrete wall’s reinforced spine.
“The technology really is groundbreaking,” Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said in a briefing with journalists on the border with the Gaza Strip. “The message to Hamas is: ‘We now have this system which can detect and destroy terror tunnels that violate Israeli sovereignty.’ ”
Conricus said that the anti-tunnel barrier under construction “provides a significant challenge for anyone tunnelling below,” without elaborating.
The construction is taking place just a few dozen yards from the Gaza border. Workers, many Palestinian or foreign, wear bulletproof vests and helmets as they move around the site.
Five concrete factories along the border are dedicated entirely to the enormous barrier. Israeli teams work six days a week, extending the underground wall by around 9 metres a day.
Israel has been haunted by the construction of enemy tunnels since June 2006, when Palestinian fighters sprang from a tunnel near the Egyptian border, killing two Israeli soldiers and capturing another.
Israel says the blockade is necessary to stop weapons from getting to Hamas, while Palestinians and human rights groups say it is a form of “collective punishment” on the 1.8 million people of Gaza.