I haven’t heard much in the news lately about the huge wall Israel is building to wall off large sections of Israel from the Palestinians. Is it complete? Are they safer now? What’s the current status of that project?
According to Wikipedia :
More info with map at the link.
It’s being built along the Israel-Gaza border, not around all of Israel. I believe parts are done, but it’s still under construction in other places.
As far as being safer, it makes it harder for enemies to sneak across the border into Israel, which should make them safer. But enemies can still disguise themselves and sneak through a border crossing with legitimate travelers, though that is harder.
Also, they can still shoot rockets & mortars across the border over the top of the wall. And people in the Middle East have been digging tunnels for thousands of years, so I expect they could eventually tunnel under it, too.
In the long term, the only effective border protection is friendly relations between the 2 countries. The USA-Canada border stretches for about 3,000 miles, and for most of it there is no barrier there at all.
It helps that Canada is not full of dirt-poor indoctrinated religious fanatics. (Hockey is not a religion.)
The Gaza Strip barrier was completed in 1996, and reconstructed in 2000-2001 after the Second Intifada. The West Bank barrier, not yet complete, is the one linked to by Aldiboranti. Note, however, that there aren’t any plans (as far as I know) to build similar walls on Israel’s borders with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon.
Blasphemer!
I remember a few years ago it seemed like there was a suicide bombing in Israel every week. I haven’t read about one in the news in a long time, or it feels that way, anyway. It seems like maybe the wall really did work.
The wall is still being built, although I believe it’s on hold now because the builders ran out of money. Yes, there have been less attacks from the other side. Unfortunately, there are still many attacks of rocks and Molotov cocktails being thrown at cars, but these attacks don’t make the news in the western news agencies.