Israel to keep Hamas out with 40-mile underground barrier
ISRAEL unveiled plans for an underground border wall around Gaza yesterday, which military officials said would stop Hamas burrowing into its territory.
A £500 million subterranean concrete barrier will run for 40 miles along the entire border, the first of its kind in the world.
In the last three months, Israeli Defence 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 three miles have already been constructed. Underground sensors will detect future efforts to tunnel into Israel, while a 30ft high fence will prevent overground crossings.
Israel refused to say how deep the wall would go but it is believed it may reach 330ft in some places.
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 30ft 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.
They held the captured soldier, Gilad Shalit, for five years before releasing him in return for more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. During the 2014 Gaza war, a Hamas squad used a tunnel to carry out an ambush that killed five Israeli troops.
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.
While the wall might neutralise the threat from tunnels, officials said they expected Hamas to continue using drones and rockets in their offensives.