[Jerusalem Post] Rebecca Anna Stoil - The 51 kilometers of security fence separating Gaza - and thousands of terror operatives - from Israeli communities is the front line of a game between hi-tech monitoring solutions and years of planning and experimentation on the part of terror organizations. The touch-sensitive fence is patrolled multiple times a day, along a narrow road that parallels it. Bedouin trackers like the IDF soldier killed Thursday play an integral part in those patrols, checking the sandy shoulders for footprints or any other suspicious change that could indicate terror activity. Behind the patrol road, spotters from the IDF's Intelligence Corps keep their eyes glued to screens monitoring the fence, and the area around it, 24 hours a day, a task almost exclusively performed by female soldiers. For every mine like Thursday's, which was planted without being noticed by the spotters, dozens of bomb-planting cells are observed - and then neutralized. Observers noted that the attack, for which the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, bore similarities to attacks carried out by Hizbullah against IDF patrols along the Lebanese border.
2008-03-07 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive