More fences to surround Gaza Strip

By JOSHUA BRILLIANT, UPI Israel Correspondent

EREZ CROSSING, Israel, July 28 (UPI) -- The sand dunes just north of the Gaza Strip have been leveled, a water tanker was sprinkling a path Thursday and workers were pouring cement and installing poles for a new electronic fence.

On Aug. 17, Israel will begin its pullback from the Gaza Strip and the fence is part of the preparations for the day after the withdrawal.

In contrast with the West Bank, where the security barrier - 95 percent fence and 5 percent wall -- meanders in and around the occupied area, the barrier around the Gaza Strip will be wholly within Israeli sovereign territory. It will follow the map that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat signed more than a decade ago.

A senior military source who briefed reporters on the preparations said before planning the barrier, officers compiled a list of the attacks Palestinian militants might launch. These ranged from cross-boundary shooting and incursions to kidnappings and attacks on strategic Israeli targets near Gaza.

Then the officers checked whether their preparations would provide the infrastructure for coping with the threats.

They knew full well the withdrawal is unilateral and that the dispute with the Palestinians is not over. Militants might be flush with a sense of victory of having "forced" the Israelis out and there is no certainty hostilities would stop.

Hence the army is preparing for what the officer called, "Extreme situations."

Israel already has an effective electronic fence around the Gaza Strip, code named Hoovers A. It has prevented Palestinian incursions.

Almost all the Palestinian suicide bombings originated in the West Bank, probably because Gazan bombers were unable to enter Israel, not because they did not want to do so.

However, the fence is part of a system and the withdrawal will deny Israel some of that system's components.

At the moment Israel can try and stop militants long before they reach the fence. There is a ban on approaching the boundary line, often enforced with gunfire. However, once Israel formally ends its occupation of Gaza it cannot order Palestinians to keep away.

In other words, anyone who wants to penetrate may go right up to the boundary line and would need less time to cross.

The new barriers Israel is building are therefore designed, mainly, to delay infiltrators and prevent roadside bombs from hitting patrols.

The first fence, coming from Gaza, is right near the agreed boundary line. It will comprise six concertina barbed wires piled up like a pyramid. No electronic gadgets there but it will be clear: Border ahead.

Some 20 meters after that runs Hoovers A with electronic systems that should send a warning signal if someone touches it.

A few meters after Hoovers A -- the distance will vary from 70 to 150 meters -- will be the new, third fence, Hoovers B. It will be like the first one, stacked up like a pyramid.

The plan is to catch the infiltrators between Hoovers A and B.

The planners believe an infiltrator with wire cutters could cross the barrier within two to three minutes and the system should give the army enough time to stop him.

Radar probing the Palestinian side should provide a first indication of movement in the area. Long-range cameras capable of seeing at night would then scan the area to examine who, or what, is moving. It could be an animal, a woman with a child or a militant. In some places Israel will send up balloons with cameras.

Every two kilometers (a little over a mile) the Israelis will have a pillbox with machine guns. Some of them will be operated by remote control, the source said.

There is no need to endanger soldiers putting them in the front line, if the army's equipment allows it to open fire from a safe site. In any case soldiers standing in pillboxes don't see that far, the source noted.

Along Hoovers B, the army will have an asphalt road, a dirt track for armored vehicles and another track that will show the infiltrators' foot prints.

Thus army Humvees equipped with digital maps and linked to command and control systems could quickly reach the area where the fence is breached. Next year the first unmanned vehicles with machine guns might be there, the source said.

The army will build a 7-meter-high wall in three places where the border passes right near Israeli communities and shield Israelis from Palestinian gunfire. One such wall, a kilometer long, will be built between the border and Netiv Ha'asara's red-roofed houses as well as greenhouses.

All this will not stop the rockets and mortar bombs that Palestinians have been sending over the fence. According to the army spokesman this month the Palestinians have fired 166 mortar bombs and 40 Qassam rockets into Israel proper.

At the moment Israel has no means to intercept those attacks, though in cooperation with the United States it is developing a laser beam that should melt a rocket in midair.

Israel does however have a system called Shahar Adom (Red Dawn) that issues a warning whenever an attack is under way.

"It worked in 90 to 95 percent of the cases," the senior officer said. It gives people a few seconds to find cover or at least lie down and halve he chances they would be hurt.

At least some defensive means would be given to 45 towns, villages and kibbutzim that are within range of the Palestinian rockets and mortars.

Secure rooms of reinforced concrete will be built for each family in the three villages closest to the border.

Several villages, also fairly close to Gaza and thus vulnerable to incursions, will be surrounded with electronic fences, a patrol road, and full time security officers.

Eventually roofs are to be reinforced.

The planners reckoned the Palestinian might dig tunnels in the soft sand dunes to reach Israel. Such tunnels were already used to blow up Israeli positions.

The plan is to bury sensors, at first near communities and crossing points, and have an infrastructure for more sensors.

The plan envisages also a 500 to 600 meters long barrier jutting out into the sea. The line of buoys and cables should force vessels to go out to sea in order to cross. Israeli patrol boats will wait for them. Implementation of that project has not started yet, the senior officer noted.