Fighting Hamas with foliage along Gaza border
Joint IDF-JNF plan to trees planted along the Gaza border will screen local kibbutzim from Hamas rocket and sniper attacks.
Israel is planting trees along its border with Gaza as a way of protecting the communities in the area from the Islamist group Hamas that controls the coastal strip.
The forestation project along the border has resumed for the first time since the end of Operation Protective Edge last summer, and aims to protect the residents from attacks from Gaza.
Anyone walking in the area at the moment cannot miss the heavy equipment and dozens of staff working on planting new trees, young and old, in order to hide exposed areas.
The project applies to several dozen kibbutzim in the Shaar Hangev and Eshkol regional councils that border the Gaza Strip. The kibbutzim are not only exposed to sniper and mortar fire, but also provide the terrorist organizations in Gaza with "markers" for the area.
The joint project between the IDF and Jewish National Funds runs to an estimate NIS 13 million. The planting project is overseen by the chief security officer for the Shaar Hanegev council, Eyal Hajbi.
The project was launched before the fighting began last summer, but in the wake of the conflict, several weak points were spotted where it was decided to plant trees.
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After the infrastructure and irrigation systems were prepared, the project reached the planting stage, and in some cases local kibbutzim assumed responsibility for one other. For example, when Kibbutz Kfar Aza decided to uproot trees due construction of residential areas, they moved them to the forests by neighboring Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
"The forestation defense campaign is moving into high gear," said the head of the Shaar Hanegev council, Alon Schuster. "The mature trees we had to move from Kfar Aza due to demographic growth are being planted at our neighbors in Nahal Oz. This is an example of mutual responsibility."
Trees are used not only to protect the communities near Gaza, but also for the train line. A few weeks after Protective Edge began, Israel started planting trees along the railway tracks on the Ashkelon-Sderot route, to protect the train from attack by Gaza missile fire.
