JERUSALEM: Israel announced on Sunday it had begun working on a barrier off the Mediterranean coast to prevent the possibility of infiltrations by sea from the Gaza Strip.

The “new and impenetrable” barrier being built off the Zikim beach, a few kilometres north of Gaza, is in effect a fortified breakwater topped with barbed wire, the defence ministry said in a statement.

In the last Gaza war in 2014, Israeli forces killed four Hamas militants who had managed to infiltrate by sea.

The ministry said the breakwater — the first of its kind in the world — was expected to be ready by the end of 2018. “This is a unique obstacle that will effectively prevent the possibility of penetrating Israel by sea,” Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement. No other details on the project were provided.

Israel is meanwhile continuing the revamp of its border fence with the besieged enclave — reinforcements include a new massive underground barrier meant to neutralise the threat of tunnels.

The announcement of the sea wall comes after weeks of tensions on the Gaza border.

Three Palestinians killed

Israeli tank fire at an Islamic Jihad observation post killed three Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian officials said.

The incident happened east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave said. A statement from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, claimed two of them as members. It was not yet clear if Marwan al-Amour, who died from his wounds later in the day, was also a member.

Islamic Jihad is the second-most powerful armed group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, which runs the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Israel’s military said in a statement that the tank fire came after soldiers detonated an explosive device that had been placed near the border fence, targeting its troops. It said the device had been hidden inside a pair of fence cutters.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2018