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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS