Netanyahu pledges to build fence along Jordan border

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday his plan for building a fence along the border with Jordan to prevent infiltration into the occupation state, local media have reported.

“We erected a fence on our southern border [with Egypt] and prevented the infiltration from there into Israel,” said Netanyahu on the X social media platform. “We thereby stopped more than a million infiltrators from Africa, who would have destroyed our country. Now, we will erect a fence on our eastern border [with Jordan] and ensure that there will be no infiltration from there either. We will protect our borders, and we will protect our country!”

His announcement came just one day after unprecedented clashes between the police and Eritrean migrants broke out in south Tel Aviv.

According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu has announced the building of such a fence a number of times in the past. In 2012, for example, he ordered Israeli army and Defence Ministry officials to start planning such a barrier; he touted a sensor-laden fence in 2015; and then announced in 2016 that he planned to “surround the entire State of Israel with a fence.”

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, said the newspaper, has recently suggested that Israel would build a new security barrier along the border with Jordan. Gallant told a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee meeting in July that “terror organisations have identified [the West Bank] as a weak spot, and direct many resources there for the purpose of attacks.”

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