IDF hoping higher fence, deeper trenches prevent repeat of Nakba Day chaos

The IDF made significant changes to its defenses in the border region with Syria ahead of Tuesday’s Nakba Day in an attempt to prevent a repeat of last year’s demonstration, during which hundreds of Syrian nationals flooded across the border and paraded through the Israeli town of Majdal Shams. Fencing has been raised, trenches dug deeper, and other precautions and strategies put in place.

“We learned the lesson of Syria,” said Lt. Col. Israel Bibi, the head of non-wartime combat doctrine in the GOC Army Headquarters.

The border defenses in the region were originally built with the image of enemy troops streaming across the Golan Heights, as was the case during the early days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Antitank mines and other obstacles were put in place in order to defend the high plateau against the Syrian army, not a group of advancing civilians.

After last year’s events, during which at least four demonstrators were killed and Israel’s control of its borders was dealt a serious blow, however, the IDF bolstered and diversified its defenses.

The new defenses are designed not merely to keep protesters on their side of the border, but to make sure they never approach it in the first place.

According to Bibi, the border fence in the region, a once short and untended-to marker, has been made into an 18-foot obstacle. The trench at the foot of the fence has been significantly deepened so that any approach toward Israel’s territory will have to be made up a steep hill rather than at a downhill dash. And, Bibi said, “there are things in the ground that are scary but not deadly,” likely referring to loud, but non-deadly devices.

The army has given significant thought to the psychology of these confrontations. Bibi said that his officers noticed last year that one of the primary deterrents to the advancing protesters was the unseen presence of IDF snipers. Sharpshooters aiming at protesters’ legs, he said, “create an effect of uncertainty” on the opposition because they do not know why or from where their peers are being taken down.

Additionally, after consulting psychologists, the IDF instituted several new standards based on lessons learned from the confrontation along the Syrian border last May 15.

The soldiers are now told in advance what to expect and how to ready themselves. They are aided by a senior commander at the fore, much like Colonel Eshkol Shukrun, the brigade commander of the Golan Heights who refused to leave the scene of last year’s confrontation even though he had been wounded. And the troops are instructed not to remain passive, to take initiative and rock the demonstrators back on their heels. “You don’t just have to stand around,” Bibi said, “you can charge forward, create a [fight or flight] dilemma, and grab the main provocateurs.”

In Israel and the Palestinian territories, as the Israel Prison Service recently revealed, the Israeli security services use undercover troops to snatch demonstrators in mid-action.

“It’s what they fear most,” Bibi said, “being taken into our custody.”