Israel has begun the
construction of a giant concrete wall that will completely encircle the
Gaza Strip, which is already grappling with a devastating siege imposed
by the Tel Aviv regime.
According to a Wednesday report on the Ynet news website, the wall "will reach several stories underground, and will also be several stories above ground."
It
will stretch along the 96-kilometer (60 mile) border around the
blockaded Palestinian enclave, and is estimated to cost about two
billion Israeli shekels (USD 531 million).
Israelis claim that the
project is meant to thwart alleged threats posed by the underground
tunnels set up by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
However,
an unnamed high-ranking Hamas official said that the Israelis "will
understand that they're digging death traps for themselves.”
Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot said it was the "largest project" ever carried out in the history of the army.
The
project has already received 600 million Israeli shekels in funding,
but risks being defunded, as no money has been allocated to it for the
2017-2018 fiscal year. This
photo released by Israeli media on September 7, 2016, shows the
construction of a concrete wall around the blockaded Gaza Strip.The
Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The
blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as
unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Israel
has also waged three wars on Gaza since 2008, including the 2014
offensive, which left more than 2,200 Palestinians dead and over 11,100
others injured.
The latest aggression against the Palestinian
territory started in early July 2014 and ended after 50 days on August
26 that year, with a truce that took effect after indirect negotiations
in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
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