Failure on the Gaza Border

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

By Arie Egozi

The advanced technological array installed along the border fence with Gaza did not prevent the infiltration, two days ago, of a Palestinian who was arrested already in the depth of Israeli territory.

“This is a huge failure, and not for the first time”, a defense source said yesterday.

A Palestinian who crossed the security fence at the southern Gaza strip was apprehended near a settlement at Sdot Negev Regional Council, some 10 km into the Israeli territory. The suspect who was taken to investigation was not armed.

According to IDF initial investigation, two days ago in the afternoon an IDF force identified an unarmed suspect crossing the security fence towards the Eshkol Regional Council. After he was not found for hours, searches were expanded and additional police and security forces joined the efforts.

After searches conducted throughout the night the suspect, a young man from Gaza, was finally spotted by a Border Police patrol near Netivot.

This is not the first infiltration from Gaza into Israel, but in previous cases the infiltrators were caught shortly after they had crossed the fence.

It is not clear why all the technological means operated by the IDF along the border could not succeed in finding the suspect immediately.

The IDF operates in this region an array of technological tools which are supposed to deal with such infiltrations.

Defense sources said yesterday that it was also unclear why climbing over the fence was so easy and how come there were no installations that could thwart such infiltrations right from the outset. “We will not elaborate on the means used by the IDF, however, someone keeps making the wrong decisions. This might end in a disaster”, said the source.

The IDF already started investigation yesterday in order to find out why the infiltrator was not under constant surveillance of the technological means deployed by IDF along the Gaza border fence.

In the past Israeli citizens crossed the border into Gaza and the IDF did not prevent it. Palestinians had crossed from Gaza and Israel but were caught immediately.

As said, at the latest incident the vast array of technological means in the region did not help keeping track of the infiltrator.