After four and a half years, Israel completed the construction of the smart obstacle around the Gaza Strip, which is the largest security project adopted by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to confront the danger of the attack tunnels of the Palestinian factions, and to prevent infiltration into Israeli territory.
In mid-2016, the Israeli Ministry of Defense began building the longest engineering wall that completely separates it from Gaza, with a length of 65 kilometers, and encircling the Strip on three geographical sides adjacent to the Israeli border, at a financial cost of $1.1 billion.
Israel's most complex projects
According to the geography of Gaza, its eastern and northern borders (including land and sea) are adjacent to Israeli territory, and are about 60 kilometers long, but the Ministry of Defense has set up the smart obstacle at a longer distance than the extension of those borders, and in this step it will be completely separated from any geographical connection with the Strip. It has been besieged for 15 years, and only the Kerem Shalom crossings in the south, and Erez in the north, connect it to it.
The engineering fence is the most complex project ever built in Israel, and has been called by several names, including the security wall, the smart barrier, and the elite fence. And the Israeli army spokesman, Avichai Adraee, says that his mission is to warn early of any security threat and to defend the Israeli communities bordering Gaza, as well as to achieve economic and social security for Tel Aviv.
Adraei added, "The smart obstacle is an underground and above-ground wall, equipped with technological means, radar systems, and shooting observatory rooms, in addition to a sea barrier, through which we seek to separate Gaza from the residents of the south and stop infiltration from the Strip."
The underground wall is equipped with technological means and a detection system for Gaza tunnels (The Independent Arabic)
Smart Obstacle Details
The smart obstacle, which is a surface and subterranean engineering wall, is divided into three sections, the first is the lower "underground wall" and reaches a depth of 30 meters, to be able to detect and destroy attack tunnels.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, about 1.2 million cubic meters of reinforced concrete were pumped at the bottom of the smart obstacle, and 140,000 tons of iron, and it was equipped with accurate sensors that can detect any underground excavations to a depth of more than 200 meters, and advanced monitoring machines that monitor Any movement or sounds away from it at a distance of up to 40 meters.
As for the second part, it is the upper wall of the smart obstacle, made of galvanized steel, about six meters long, and topped with a steel wire containing a short circuit, 3.5 meters high. It is equipped with war rooms, night and day vision equipment, radars and surveillance cameras, and in the middle are openings stationed behind them. Snipers carrying advanced weapons, on top of them are drones, in addition to spy and surveillance balloons.
And the third, the sea barrier is 200 meters high and includes means to detect any penetration from the sea, a remote-controlled automatic weapons system, equipped with sensors and warning systems, surrounded by a breakwater, and used as a last security measure.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the amount of concrete invested in the smart barrier is enough to build a road from Israel to Bulgaria, while the amount of iron and steel is equivalent to the length of a steel section that reaches from Israel to Australia.
The amount of concrete invested in the smart barrier is enough to build a road from Israel to Bulgaria (The Independent Arabic)
Attack tunnels danger
In fact, Tel Aviv constructed the smart obstacle after the outbreak of about 15 military confrontations, and it erected it in response to the digging of attack tunnels by the Palestinian factions in Gaza, reaching a depth of 200 meters in Israeli territory, with which they carried out military operations as well as used them in the operations of kidnapping soldiers, including Hadar Goldin and Aaron Shaul .
According to the Hamas website, they used "the attack tunnels weapon 13 times during the period 2001 to 2014, and they relied on this method as a strategic weapon and not as a tactic in the 2014 Israeli aggression."
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz says that the smart obstacle will deprive "Hamas" of its attack tunnels, which are "the oldest capabilities that it tried to develop, and through them we will provide a defensive wall for the residents of the south to feel secure and continue to grow."
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Gantz considered that his next mission and current focus is to confront Hamas's rockets, and indicated that he is trying to prevent the transfer of technological expertise to Gaza, and is working to disrupt and thwart the movement's attempt to activate its military arms in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The smart obstacle is not the first wall that Israel builds around Gaza. Rather, it has previously erected a wall of a series of sand dunes inside the Strip, the aim of which is to prevent the detection of nearby Israeli training sites, as well as a wall of trees for camouflage.
Illegal and tightens the siege
According to the available information, Israel will integrate the smart obstacle with the smart and deadly borders, which include mobile robots divided into a military company for confrontation, a reserve and an interception, all without a human element, dealing directly with smart hovercraft that receive instructions from monitoring systems, and can carry out attacks against targets, It is connected to the army command center, which monitors the events on the border.
However, the Palestinian factions in Gaza did not pay much attention to the smart obstacle and considered it an illusion. Earlier, the "Al-Qassam Brigades", the military wing of the "Hamas" movement, published on its website, that "the Israeli wall will not limit the ability of the resistance that will find solutions to bypass it, and that all of Israel's experiences in confronting the tunnels have a zero result."
Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanou said that the construction of the wall is illegal and tightens the siege on Gaza from above and below the ground, and is a provocation to the factions, and Israel must bear the consequences of that.
He pointed out that "the wall will not give Israel security, while the resistance is a right guaranteed by international laws and norms, and the factions have the right to possess whatever weapons they want to confront the army's violence against civilians."