Israel will build an undersea barrier stretching a half-mile off the Gaza Strip to keep potential attackers from swimming to its coast after Israel withdraws troops and settlers from Gaza this summer, military officials said Friday.
Israel believes the barrier is necessary because the military will lose surveillance systems in the planned pullout, military officials said on condition of anonymity because the project had not yet begun.
The barrier's first 150m will consist of cement pilings buried in the sandy bottom, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported Friday. A 1.8-meter-deep fence floating beneath the surface will run an additional 800m.
Military officials said construction of the underwater barrier would begin soon, but it would not be completed by the Gaza pullout's scheduled start in mid-August.
A Palestinian official denounced the project Friday, urging Israel to abandon its "mentality of barriers."
"The answer to all these woes of security and so on in is a meaningful peace process, is building the bridges with the Palestinians, is ending the occupation," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is surrounded by an Israeli fence built to keep back attackers. Israel also is building a barrier to wall off the West Bank.
"I hope the Israeli mentality of barriers will end," Erekat said. "Now they have land barriers and tomorrow sea barriers and the day after sky barriers and what else? Will they put a barrier around each Palestinian individual, or house?"
In another development, Israel said Friday its dispute with the US over its military technology sales to China would be resolved soon. On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, due in Israel this weekend, acknowledged a sharp disagreement with Israel over the issue.
"We are attentive to American concerns. The issue will be solved over the next few weeks and we will work out all the points of dispute," said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
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