Israeli leaders Wednesday approved the construction of a border fence with Egypt.

The fence was originally proposed years ago, but was never built because of the cost, estimated at 1 billion to 2 billion shekels ($270 million). Officials said designs for the wall should begin immediately, though it wasn’t clear where the money would come from or when construction would begin.

Late last month, militants tore down sections of Gaza’s border with Egypt, enabling hundreds of thousands of Gazans to break out and buy supplies in an Egyptian border town. After 12 days of anarchy, Egyptian forces sealed the breaks on Sunday.

Israeli security chiefs have warned Palestinian militants used the Gaza-Egypt border breach to slip out of Gaza, and could try to make their way from Egypt through a porous border into Israel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Building Construction, General News. Tags: construction, Design, Egypt, Gaza, Gaza's border, Israel, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.