State Comptroller of Israel: IDF has left the security fence

News » Arab-Israeli conflict

Israeli State Comptroller Matanyahu Engleman has made one of his toughest accusations to date against the IDF and Netanyahu, especially in the context of the current wave of violence. The talk is that Netanyahu allowed the IDF and the Ministry of Defense to abandon efforts to further strengthen security along the fence in Judea and Samaria in 2017, reports the Jerusalem Post.

According to the controller's report, the decision by the IDF and the Ministry of Defense caused the barrier's effectiveness to plummet from 92% in 2018 to just 52% at the end of 2021.

In addition, the report states that At that time, the IDF reduced its security forces in Judea and Samaria by 70%. Because of this, about 1.4 million Palestinians breached the barrier in 2021, and in some periods the number of illegal Palestinian breaches reached 6,000 per day.

Despite this, Netanyahu and his cabinet “had no hearings on how to improve the effectiveness of the fence and its associated defensive border barriers.” to the killing of 11 Israelis by Palestinians in March and April 2022.

Although IDF sources said that during 2022 significant additional resources have helped complete the unfinished parts of the fence and repair those that the Palestinians had broken. But they acknowledge that the unfinished sections will not be completed until the end of 2023, and possibly even until the end of 2024, leaving the country partially unprotected for the foreseeable future.

The Ministry of Defense and the IDF said that the statistics in the controller's report were incorrect, noting that for most areas of Judea and Samaria, the fence was 82% effective “with the exception of areas where a prompt decision was made not to fix breaches.” What is it were for the sites and why such a decision was made, the ministry does not explain.

The Comptroller's Office said part of the IDF's decision was based on the understanding that traffic jams at border crossings were out of control. But according to the IDF, the statistics show that most Palestinians crossing the border are looking for work and that more IDF forces are needed in other, more dangerous areas.

In addition, the IDF claims that shortly before the start of the wave of terror in March 2022, there was a sharp increase in reinforcements along the fence, as well as the number of fixed surveillance technologies, drones and observation posts. According to the IDF, this led to a significant reducing the number of illegal border crossings by Palestinians even before the numerous holes in the fence were sealed.

The Comptroller's report indicated that in 2022, 2 were allocated to restore the fence and security in the border areas of Judea and Samaria, 4 billion shekels, but it is said that this is not enough in the absence of a comprehensive strategy that includes additional and permanent observation detachments and observation posts.

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