Smart fence
Smart fenceDefense Ministry

The Defense Ministry has finally finished building "smart fences" around 12 Gaza Belt communities, it announced on Tuesday, over one year after Operation Protective Edge ended.

The 30 million shekel ($7,751,539) project includes tens of meters of "smart fence" reinforced with security cameras and coverage for three years' worth of maintenance. 

Communities now protected including Holot, Nir Yitzhak, Sufa, Nirim, Nir-Oz, Ein HaShlosha, Kissufim, Kibbutz Alumim, Sa'ad, Kfar Aza, Miflasim, and Nir-Am. All of them are mere kilometers from the Gaza border. 

Karmiya and Yad Mordechai will also receive smart fences over the next several months. 

Work on the fence system appears to have been accelerated, following a senior officer's expose that the Finance Ministry had been postponing the project for months.

The Defense Ministry first promised to protect the Gaza Belt with smart fences in September 2014, less than one month after the war ended. The move followed multiple infiltration attempts into Israel from Gaza, as well as an ill-timed measure by the IDF and Defense Ministry to cut guard posts around the same communities just months before Protective Edge began.