These staggering images made the rounds on social media throughout the weekend. In the early hours of Saturday, October 7, Hamas terrorists attacked the Erez border crossing. Rockets were fired at the concrete wall, opening a passage, and then at the iron fence, which was several meters high.
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- LIVE - Follow Hamas' attack on Israel
Elsewhere, a bulldozer opens a passage, simply destroying the huge fortified fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel. Fighters from the Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades armed with assault weapons are breaching the fence by the dozens. At the same time, Hamas was firing more than 5000,<> rockets into Israeli territory, and other terrorist commandos were flying in hang gliders to cross the border from the sky.
The "iron wall" should have been impassable. Inaugurated in 2021 after three years of costly construction, the fortification was presented by the authorities as "unique in the world", with strong arguments. The 65-kilometre-long fortification consists of a wall and fence that required 140,000 tons of iron and steel. Financed to the tune of more than a billion dollars, the "Iron Wall" is also a compendium of technological innovation, full of multiple radars and other sensors, particularly deep in the ground.
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The rampart is indeed equipped with an underground concrete part, one meter thick, and probably several tens of meters deep, as Le Figaro noted during a report during its construction. The stated objective was to prevent any intrusion attempt by digging tunnels from the Gaza Strip. Since 2007, Israel has imposed a blockade of the Palestinian territory, which has been controlled by Hamas since then. The wall is also equipped with remotely controlled weapon systems as well as radar systems. "This barrier is part of the 'iron wall' of our defense policy, on the ground, in the air, at sea and in general," General Aviv Kokhavi, Israel's chief of staff, said at its inauguration.
'A Maginot Line'
And the construction of the wall was decided after the war in the summer of 2014, with an almost unanimous consensus, unlike the wall in the West Bank. During the 52-day conflict, in which more than 2100,73 Palestinians and 32 Israelis were killed, residents of the border kibbutzim had lived in fear of enemy fighters springing up tunnels under the border. On several occasions, Hamas commandos carried out deadly raids, convincing Israel to launch Operation Protective Edge to destroy, according to official announcements, more than <> tunnels.
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The Israelis chose to build a conventional security fence initially monitored by autonomous patrols of robots and drones, but in the end, the IDF found it more effective to rely on reaction forces ready to intervene quickly," explains historian Pierre Razoux, academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies*.
A bulldozer destroys the metal fence on the Israel-Gaza border, October 7, 2023. STRINGER/REUTERS
Palestinians enter the Israeli side of the border fence between Israel and Gaza on October 7, 2023. STRINGER/REUTERS
The barrier, a "technologically advanced and innovative project," "will give Israeli citizens a sense of security," former Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a 2021 statement. According to the same press release, the barrier also has a portion at sea "connected to a remotely controlled weapons system".
Israel has also built a barrier made up of large concrete sections in places to separate its land from the West Bank, another Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by the Israeli army. Another wall, this time made of steel, was built by Israel on its border with Egypt. General Eran Ofir, who led the construction, said that the wall around Gaza was "one of the most complex projects ever carried out" for the country's defense.
Blinding the Israeli General Staff
But obviously, all this defensive harness was not enough to prevent a crossing of the border. "The country's leaders thought they had found the solution by creating a sealed border with a wall and barbed wire. But they discovered that it was actually a Maginot Line," Jacob Heilbrunn, director of the geopolitical magazine The National Interest, told L'Express.
With unsophisticated weapons, Hamas fighters managed to break through the wall. "They first neutralized the cameras and surveillance devices to make the Israeli General Staff blind and deaf, then they seized the checkpoints and went through lateral crossing points created by the IDF to allow it to carry out incursions into Gaza," Razoux said. "Hamas has also dug new tunnels, in the form of small hoses of several hundred meters or even kilometers, enough to allow a fighting group to cross the border."
The "Iron Dome" in action over the city of Netivot, October 8. MAHMUD HAMS / AFP
At the same time, Israel's defense has been undermined by the number of rockets fired by Hamas, saturating the "Iron Dome," a system developed in 2006 to protect the skies from Gaza fire. It can shoot down aircraft with a range of up to 70 km, day or night, in all weather conditions, in rain, low clouds or fog. And while it has a 90 percent success rate, according to its manufacturer, it has not been able to stop the thousands of rockets fired at Israel over the weekend.
Despite Israel's iron defense, Israel was taken by surprise, giving Hamas terrorists time to take away about 100 Israeli hostages. "We have become too dependent on the very sophisticated underground barrier, too dependent on technology. We convinced ourselves that this deterred and frightened Hamas," a reserve officer told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
*Pierre Razoux is the author of Tsahal : Nouvelle histoire de l'armée Israël, published by Perrin.