Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced during a tour of the occupied Jordan Valley yesterday that Tel Aviv will begin building a wall along the border between Israel and the occupied West Bank and Jordan, in the coming months, and that the goal is to complete the construction of this wall within three years.
The goal of the wall, he explained, is to “prevent the smuggling of arms and terrorism, as well as strengthen settlement” in the occupied Palestinian Jordan Valley. “I ordered the promotion of establishing settlements along the wall in order to strengthen our control over the area,” he said, according to a statement issued by his office.
There is a direct connection between eliminating Palestinian resistance groups in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and building the wall, he added, “in order to thwart Iran’s attempts to establish an eastern terrorist front against Israel.”
Katz presented the wall construction plan to the heads of the settlement councils in the Jordan Valley. According to the plan, the cost of building the wall is 5.2 billion shekels ($1.4 million), and it will extend for a distance of 425 kilometres, from the south of the occupied Golan Heights to the north of the city of Eilat. The construction of the wall will be carried out by the Border and Seam Directorate in cooperation with the Engineering and Construction Division and the Defence Procurement Directorate in the Ministry of Defence and the Central and Southern Commands of the Israeli occupation army.
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