An Israeli military official based in the southern part of Israel stated Monday that the first stage of the Israeli electric fence on the Israel-Egypt borders will be accomplished soon.
Israeli press reported that the Israeli Ministry of the Army had rushed to complete the infrastructure needed to build the electronic wall along the border after the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak fell to popular protests in February.
The top Israeli General hired dozens of new contractors in locations all along the Egypt-Israel border in order to accelerate the project’s completion.
The border fence is similar to the one currently under construction by Israeli contractors on the US-Mexico border. That fence is around 8 meters high, and buried several meters into the ground. It is fully electrified, with settings that can be changed from ‘stun’ to ‘kill’ at the discretion of border guards. Over 300 Mexicans were killed last year along the US-Mexico border while trying to enter the US for work. Many of those killed were shocked to death by the electric border fence.
The Israel-Egypt border fence is expected to be completed in the first quarter of year 2013. The Israeli military told Israeli reporters that they expect that the first 100 kilometers out of 210 kilometers to be completed by the end of 2011. So far, 12 kilometers of the electric fence have been completed, including the barbed wire along the top.
Israeli officials confirmed that the fence will include an underground component in order to prevent tunneling, in addition to a steel wall which prevents people to scale or to pass the borders.
The border fence is expected to reach from the Shakma crossing to the city of Eilat.
Israeli officials say that the fence is mainly to prevent Palestinians from Gaza from crossing into Israel through Egypt.
Prior to the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, 2/3 of workers in Gaza traveled to Israel for work. The closure of the border has led to widespread unemployment in the Gaza Strip, which was exacerbated in 2007 when the Israeli government shut off imports and exports into and out of Gaza.
