|
Trending Topics
|
On Israel-Egypt Border, Best Defense Is a Good Fence
(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - A vast project to put a high-tech fence between Egypt and Israel is being carried out with surprising speed. The fence is five meters high - twice the height of the separation fence in the territories and of the fences on Israel's other borders. This year it consumed 15% percent of the country's annual steel consumption. The fence is going up at a rate of 800 meters a day. By the end of next January, the first 100 km. of the 240 km. fence will be in place. The effects of investment in fencing can be seen best along the border with Syria in the Golan Heights. After Palestinian and Syrian demonstrators managed to infiltrate the border during Nakba Day rioting, the Defense Ministry repaired the fence at a cost of NIS 50 million. Since then, "demonstrators have come from Syria, seen that the fence is impassable, and gone back," says the deputy director general of the Defense Ministry, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Bezalel Treiber.