- JERUSALEM -- Israel has announced
plans to build a saltwater moat along the Gaza-Egypt border in a move greeted
with shock and bemusement.
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- The moat is intended to deter the smuggling of weapons
through tunnels under the frontier from Egypt into Palestinian areas.
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- Israel's defence ministry published a request for bids
after the cabinet approved, in principle, a Gaza pullout plan, under which
Israel would keep a narrow corridor on the Egyptian frontier pending possible
security arrangements with Egypt.
-
- The moat will be 2.5 miles in length, between 15 to 16
yards deep and is expected to be filled with seawater.
-
- Defence officials confirmed that the moat will be built
along the Philadelphi Route by the border ahead of the withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip, including all Jewish settlements, which is scheduled to
be completed by the end of 2005.
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- "This is the beginning of turning the Gaza Strip
into a big prison," said Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian cabinet minister,
comparing the trench to the barrier Israel is constructing in the West
Bank with the declared aim of stopping suicide bombers.
-
- Palestinian officials have said such a project would
lead to more houses being bulldozed in the Rafah camp, the scene of a six-day
Israeli army operation in May which the UN relief agency UNRWA said made
575 people homeless.
-
- When Israeli officials first suggested a security moat
last month the concept was met with a mixture of wonderment, ridicule and
a few guffaws.
-
- Some commentators wondered whether it would be filled
with crocodiles to snap up any wayward Palestinians or if Mr Sharon had
any plans to take a sailing trip along it.
-
- One respondent, writing to an internet site reporting
on the moat building plan, inquired: "Will it have sharks with frickin'
laser beams?"
-
- But defence ministry officials are deadly serious. A
senior defence official said a major part of the cost for digging the moat
will be financed by the sale of large quantities of sand that will be dug
up during construction.
-
- It is still unclear, however, whether Israel has the
right to sell the sand, since the land in question is defined as "occupied"
territory.
-
- For some days now Israeli officials have been talking
about severing the "terrorists' lifeline" and how they will "reshape"
the southern Gaza Strip border area before it can implement a unilateral
disengagement plan.
-
- The army has said it found and destroyed more than 80
tunnels used by militants in the past three years and commanders have voiced
fears that the Palestinians could seek to bring in longer-range weapons
to fire at Israeli cities.
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- Israeli troops claim to have found several smuggling
tunnels dug under the Philadelphi Route and forces in the area have come
under almost daily shooting attacks in the area.
-
- In Nablus yesterday Israeli forces arrested two teenage
girls in connection with a plan to carry out a suicide bombing.
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- Both their fathers have been arrested, though it is not
clear their fathers were aware of the plan.
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- The girls have not been named, but Israeli security sources
said the suicide bomber was aged 15. She was recruited by a 14-year-old
girl friend, also from Nablus.
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