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Israel begins work on security fence along Jordanian border

Xinhua, January 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Israel began work on a massive security fence along the southern part of its border with Jordan, the Israeli Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

The project, which was approved by the Israeli government in June, is expected to take place until the end of the year and cost approximately 77 million U.S. dollars.

The fence would stretch for 30 kilometers, starting from Eilat, Israel's southern resort town, up until the designated area of a new international airport in Timna.

The defense ministry released a picture of the fence on Wednesday, showing workers from the ministry's Engineering and Construction Division starting to work on the border fence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said back in June, amid the approval of the plan that the fence will be entirely within the Israeli state's territory.

"It will not, in any way, infringe on the sovereignty of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its national interests," Netanyahu said.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and kept a friendly relations since then, including military and economic coordination.

However, recent strife over the al-Aqsa mosque in east Jerusalem, which Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 War, increased the tensions between the two countries.

The decision to build the fence comes after over one million Syrian and Iraqi refugees fled to Jordan in the past several years amid conflicts in their countries, causing concern among Israeli security officials over the prospects of Islamic Jihad militants infiltrating Israeli territory through Jordan.

Jordan is Israel's only border country not blocked by fence. The Jewish state already has a security fence along its border with Lebanon.

Israel had also built a fortified fence along its northern border with Syria and much of the occupied territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to millions of Palestinians, are separated by walls and fences from Israeli turf.

In 2013, Israel completed the construction of a 240-km-long high-tech fence along its Egyptian border, mainly in order to prevent African asylum seekers from entering the country. Endit