Israel will start building the long-discussed security fence along its border with Jordan. The project, expected to last three years, will cost NIS 5.2 billion ($1.4 billion).

Calls to build a secure border fence were a reaction to the increase in drug and gun smuggling over the border, which is blamed for the sharp rise in violent incidents within the Arab community and acts of terrorism against Israelis.

The border, stretching from Hamat Gader at the southern edge of the Golan Heights to Ramon International Airport north of Eilat, includes a 30-kilometer (18-mile) section upgraded similarly to Israel’s border barriers with Egypt and the Gaza Strip during the 2010s.

Israel will try to construct the fence as close as possible to the Jordanian border; the currently standing fence leaves a 170-square-kilometer gap.

The new fence is expected to be stronger and more sophisticated than the current chain-link fence, which has sensors in some places and only barbed wire in others.

In November, Defense Minister Israel Katz, while still occupying the position of foreign minister, stressed the need to increase security at the Jordanian border and said that Iran was taking advantage of the weak fence to smuggle weapons and other items to terrorists.

“We see a relentless and institutionalized Iranian effort to establish an eastern front against the State of Israel. I have decided to intensively promote the construction of the fence on the eastern border between Israel and Jordan. We are going to do it very quickly,” Katz said.

He  accused Tehran of working to create an “eastern terror front against Israel.”

The October 7 Hamas attack has heightened these concerns, although it remains unclear whether the IDF will increase troop presence along the new barrier or primarily depend on technology.

Image - Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90