Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved plans on Sunday to erect fences along part of Israel’s border with Egypt and install advanced surveillance equipment to keep out illegal migrants and militants.
“I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Thousands of African and other migrants have come to Israel through its porous border with Egypt over the last few years, fleeing conflict back home or searching for a better life in the Jewish state. Israeli police say 100 to 200 Africans enter illegally through Egypt each week.
The issue of refugees is a sensitive topic in Israel, a country created in part to absorb Jews fleeing persecution.
Netanyahu said Israel would continue to accept refugees from conflict zones but “we cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.”
The project will cost 1 billion shekels (US$270 million) and take two years to complete. The barrier will not be erected along the whole border, which is 266km long.
Advanced surveillance equipment will help border control officers to spot infiltrators.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said yesterday that Netanyahu had okayed the construction of two sections of fence, one opposite the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah in the southwest and another near the Red Sea.
Egyptian security sources in North Sinai said Israel had not informed the Egyptian authorities of its plan.
One security source said the project was an internal Israeli matter “which Egypt has nothing to do with as long as the fence is built on Israeli soil.”
Egyptian police have stepped up efforts in recent months to control the frontier with Israel following an increase in human trafficking through Egypt. At least 17 migrants have been killed by Egyptian police since May.
Egypt is building an underground barrier along its border with the Gaza Strip to stem Palestinian arms smuggling through tunnels.
Israel is also building a controversial barrier in and around the occupied West Bank.
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