Israel Completes Construction Of Gaza Border Barrier - Defense Ministry

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published December 07, 2021 | 08:31 PM

After three and a half years, Israel has completed construction of a technologically advanced and partly underground border barrier around the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday

TEL AVIV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2021) After three and a half years, Israel has completed construction of a technologically advanced and partly underground border barrier around the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday.

"After three and a half years of work, the construction project of the barrier around the Gaza Strip has been finished. The 65 kilometer (40.3 miles) long barrier includes an underground wall with technological detection equipment, a physical fence, a naval barrier, detection equipment and combat devices, which will prevent any invasion on the territory of Israel from the Gaza Strip," the ministry said.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, the chief of general staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Aviv Kochavi, and senior defense ministry officers were present at the barrier opening ceremony.

"The defense barrier is one of the most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, and it is another evidence that there is no task the defense ministry cannot achieve.

The barrier has already reshaped the reality in the sphere of defense in the southern part of the country and it will boost economic and social growth in villages bordering Gaza," the director general of the Ministry of Defense, Amir Eshel, said.

The construction of the barrier was carried out over three and a half years with the employment of more than 1,200 workers in the construction. For the purposes of construction, six concrete production plants were built on the border with Gaza. More than 3 million cubic meters of soil were removed and filled in, while about 140,000 tonnes of cast iron and steel were used for the barrier.

Israel began building the barrier around Gaza following the 2014 Gaza war in which Hamas used subterranean attack tunnels against Israeli troops.