Israel approves construction of a security wall on the border with Jordan.

Israel's security cabinet approved a new plan to build a security wall along the eastern border with Jordan, Israel's Army Radio reported on Monday.

The plan, according to the radio, includes strengthening Israeli control over the Jordan Valley region by establishing settlement outposts, farms, and training camps.

It also includes the establishment of a multi-layered defense system extending 425 kilometers, from the southern occupied Golan Heights in the north to the city of Eilat in the south.

The radio described the project as a "preemptive strike" against what it described as Iran's attempts to turn the eastern border into a "terrorist front," as it put it.

In this context, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz stated that the construction of the wall represents a strategic step to confront what he considered Iranian attempts to smuggle weapons through Jordan and transform the border into a hostile front, stressing the need to complete the project quickly.

For its part, Hamas condemned the plan, stressing in a statement that building the wall will not provide the occupation with protection from the repercussions of its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, their land, and their holy sites.

The statement added that previous security wall projects erected by the occupation had failed to curb the resistance, and that this new wall would not achieve its goals, but would instead strengthen the Palestinian people's resolve to choose resistance as the sole path to liberation.

Last April, Israeli media reported that the Israeli government intended to begin building a new fence along the border with Jordan, under the pretext of halting arms and drug smuggling.

Reports indicate that the project will cost $1.4 billion and will take approximately three years to complete.

The idea for the wall dates back to 2012, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered military officials to begin planning for a comprehensive fence along the eastern border. In 2015, Netanyahu announced a project to build a wall equipped with advanced sensors, later affirming his intention to "encircle the entire State of Israel with a security fence."

The Israeli Ministry of Defense began preliminary work last November to implement the project, amid escalating Israeli warnings that the border with Jordan was becoming a security threat.

These Israeli actions followed two high-profile attacks in the region last September and October. The first, at the Allenby Bridge crossing, resulted in the deaths of three Israelis and the martyrdom of Jordanian perpetrator Maher al-Jazi. The second, near the Dead Sea, resulted in the injury of two Israelis and the martyrdom of Jordanians Hussam Abu Ghazaleh and Amer Qawas.

The total border distance between Jordan on the one hand, and Israel and the West Bank on the other, is approximately 335 kilometers, of which 238 kilometers are with Israel and 97 kilometers with the West Bank.

The two sides are connected by three main border crossings: Sheikh Hussein, the King Hussein Bridge (Allenby), and Wadi Araba (Yitzhak Rabin). These crossings are subject to closure during times of security tension, as occurred during the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.