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Israeli army bolsters brigade-level forces along Egyptian border

27 December 2012 04:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Israeli army on Wednesday announced the establishment of a third brigade to augment it's southern division along with the Egyptian border, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

At a ceremony held at a base outside the Red Sea port city of Eilat, senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials noted next month's expected completion of a 240-km-long high-tech border fence with Egypt.

Southern Command chief, Tal Russo said the IDF was adapting its "concept of operation" to deal with a new and growing array of threats, in a statement sent to Xinhua, including increasing cross- border raids and rocket attacks by Sinai-based militants against civilians and soldiers.

Russo said that sharply increased patrols and related electronic monitoring of the border in the vicinity of Eilat had " significantly reduced infiltration along the border."

Since the downfall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 the border has seen a sputtering rise in attacks against patrols and civilians, including along highways adjacent to the border. Last August, terrorists killed eight Israelis traveling along a border road.

Due to its extreme topography, the open sandy area is particularly vulnerable to infiltrations and has served in the past as a corridor for militants to reach Israeli territory.

The beefed-up security includes radar and fence-mounted vibration sensor arrays which signals operators where an infiltration is taking place. A similar system is also deployed on Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.

Crews are also paving a new alternative road to one which runs alongside the fence, in order to distance motorists from areas where several terror attacks have occurred.

In September, a group of armed gunmen ambushed the Israeli soldiers as the latter tended to several civilian infiltrators, killing a soldier and wounding a second.