Israel Hopeful of Gaza Wall Completion
Israel
says it hopes Egypt’s underground wall along its border with the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to stop smuggling will be completed by
the end of the year.
Lobbying to end smuggling
A senior Israeli official said the project, which involves
laying a steel barrier twenty metres underground as well as a
security system, should stop most of the smuggling along the
corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt.
It is a route through which supplies of both munitions and basic
commercial goods lacking in Gaza, reach the Palestinians,
because of the Israeli blockade on the rest of Gaza's land
border.
Israel has long lobbied Egypt to tackle the cross-border
smuggling.
Cairo has played down the scope of the work along the fourteen
kilometres frontier, but the Islamist group Hamas condemns it as
a ’’wall of death’’ that could complete an Israeli-led
blockade of Gaza by eliminating tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai.
Tunnels’ ulterior purposes
Israel says Hamas has used the tunnels to replenish its rocket
and small arms arsenal since the war. Israeli officials have
said Hamas has also increased the range of its short-range
rockets and acquired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
Tunnel builders say about 3,000 underground passages were
operational before Israel launched a three-week offensive
against Gaza over a year ago, but only 150 are still
operating after the conflict and subsequent Israeli air raids.
Since the Gaza conflict, Hamas has been trying to stop other
militant groups from firing rockets into Israel to avoid
retaliation.
A previously unknown group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed
responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel on March 18
that killed a Thai hothouse worker, the first fatal rocket
attack for more than a year.
REUTERS/Williams/Yinka
