Israel putting up new wall, but this barrier will be mostly underground

KFAR SIRKIN, Israel — Israel is building another wall to protect itself from its enemies. But rather than a major eyesore, much of this one will be invisible.

In the coming months, military officials say, the army will be accelerating construction of a subterranean barrier around the Gaza Strip, designed to cut off tunnels running beneath the border into Israel like the ones Hamas militants used in 2014.

Challenged by hostile forces on most of its fronts, Israel is already pretty much walled in. Aboveground fences and sections of concrete wall run along and through parts of the West Bank. Formidable steel fences also stretch along the northern frontiers with Lebanon and Syria, the southern borders with Jordan and the Egyptian Sinai, and around Gaza,.

Israeli military officials are being cagey about how the new underground barrier will work, other than to say it will also include an aboveground section and incorporate layers of advanced technological systems. The cost is expected to be about 4 billion shekels (more than $1 billion.)

Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, commander of the military’s Southern Command, told reporters this week that it would be completed within about two years.

Military commanders insist that the wall is meant only to defend Israelis, and emphasize that it will be built in Israeli territory.

Military officials distributed aerial photographs and GPS coordinates of two residential buildings in Gaza that they said concealed entrances to Hamas tunnel networks.

“We see that Hamas is deterred and restrained, and is reining in others,” Zamir said. But, he added, “Our intelligence shows without any doubt that Hamas is building its infrastructure for the next round of fighting in the civilian arena.”