Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Israeli army is preparing to build a 500 kilometre long security fence along the eastern border with Jordan similar to the security barrier it had built along the Egyptian border to counter "infiltration dangers", Commander of the Eilat Territorial Brigade General Roi Alkabetz said.

Alkabetz said during a lecture at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv that the project needs a huge budget but refused any justification for a delay in allocating the funds.

Alkabetz said the military battalion operating in the southern area of ​​Eilat considers the eastern border with Jordan a cause for concern during the coming period. "The Kingdom of Jordan is friendly to Israel and cooperates with us better than Egypt, but the common border with Jordan is completely unsecure. Millions of refugees who arrived in Jordan from Syria and Iraq could pose a clear security threat to Israel and it is likely that they include hostile elements which carry weapons and threaten the security of Israel."

General Alkabets said "I know that it sounds like a slogan, but the truth is that calm here is misleading and things could change in a single moment. In this area there are enough of those with bad intentions, and this will not change soon."

Israel built a huge 240 kilometre security fence along the border with Egypt. The Israeli army expressed its satisfaction with the wall saying it has proven effective over the years.

According to General Alkabetz the main reason for the calm prevailing on the Egyptian front is completing the construction of the wall along the border with Egypt, and preserving military activity in the region.

"Practically we have built the wall as an emergency plan to cope with tens of thousands of job seekers who have arrived in Israel from Africa, but a major turnover was in the area of ​​security, as infiltrators and smuggling jobs constituted a permanent base for terrorism," he added.

The General pointed out that "over the last three years there have been 14 operations, including 10 gunfire operations against Eilat. The data means that the wall formed a real barrier on the border with Egypt. Besides repelling terrorism, or at least preventing the entry into the Israeli territories, the wall contributed to permanently stop the infiltrators."

According to the Israeli army data in 2011; nearly 10,455 infiltrators entered Israel from Sinai, while since the beginning of this year, only seven infiltrators tried to enter but were caught.

*Middle East Monitor