Yesterday, Bar-El Hadaria Shmueli—a sniper with the Israeli border police—died from a gunshot wound he received nine days earlier, when a Palestinian shot a pistol through a hole in the Gaza border fence. The attack was part of a series of violent disturbances that have taken place along the border—reminiscent of the 2018 “March of Return”—during which rioters hurled stones and explosives, and attempted to climb the fence. Alan Baker comments:
One of the central security elements of the 1995 Israel-Palestinian interim agreement (commonly termed “Oslo II”) was the creation of what was called the “Delimiting Line” along the entire northern and western edges of the Gaza Strip, separating the Strip from Israel’s sovereign territory. Part of this central security element was the establishment of a “security perimeter” adjacent to that line, within the Gaza Strip, hundreds of meters wide.
Following Israel’s 2005 unilateral disengagement from the Gaza, . . . Hamas has utilized and abused—and continues to utilize and abuse—this very same security perimeter for precisely the opposite purpose of that for which it was established. They have turned it into a zone for organized disorder and violence, a zone in which they sponsor, encourage, and organize periodic, mass, violent demonstrations, [and which they employ] as a staging area for attempted infiltrations and as a means, periodically, to put pressure on Israel, to attract international attention, and to extort Egypt, the UN, Qatar, and others to provide money and other forms of material and financial support.
Clearly, such a glaring vacuum in the security situation along the edge of the Gaza Strip, if allowed to continue, and if not filled by Israel with appropriate, alternative, and effective military and intelligence mechanisms, . . . is nothing more than an open invitation . . . for further abuse by Hamas.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/is-the-security-perimeter-in-the-gaza-strip-defunct-677971