Improving Sinai Border Fence

January 25, 2017

by: Edgar Asher

Friday, 27 January 2017 | The Department of Engineering and Construction of the Ministry of Defense has now completed a project to raise in places the height of the border fence that separates Israel from Egypt.

The 242 kilometer [150 mi] fence, which stretches from the Red Sea Port of Eilat to the Gaza Strip was completed in 2014. However it was considered that the fence, which is equipped with many electronic warning systems, was still not high enough to prevent illegal immigrants and smugglers being able to infiltrate into Israel, almost at will. Thus a particularly vulnerable seventeen-kilometer [10.5 mi] segment of the fence was raised from five to eight meters [16–26 ft]. At the same time more state-of-the-art electronic devices have been installed. This new device, plus the increasing of the border fence height, has dramatically reduced the number of infiltrations along this long border. In 2016 only eleven attempts to cross the border were deemed to be successful. A year earlier the figure was in excess of two hundred individuals.

Posted on January 25, 2017

Source: (Excerpt of article originally published by Ashernet on 23 January 2017. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today.)

Photo Credit: Ashernet