ISRAEL TO BUILD ‘SECURITY WALL’ ALONG GAZA BORDER

Photo: Anadolu Agency

Jerusalem, 3 Muharram/16 October 2015 (MINA) –  Israel has announced plans to build a “security wall” along its border with the blockaded Gaza Strip, Israeli state radio reported late Wednesday.

According to the broadcaster, the Israeli army plans to erect the 65-kilometer-long barrier with the ostensible aim of preventing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from “infiltrating” Jewish settlements located on the Israeli side of the border, Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The move comes amid a spate of recent violence that began last month when the Israeli authorities closed off East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, Islam’s third-holiest site, to Muslim men under 50, while allowing groups of extremist Jewish settlers to enter the site in large numbers.

In a wave of subsequent violence that remains ongoing, 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces — 21 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and 11 in the blockaded Gaza Strip — this month alone.

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Over the same period, some 1,700 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli gunfire, according to figures released by the Palestinian Health Ministry. (T/P010/R04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)

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