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Israel, though, has effectively addressed many of these issues, even successfully negotiating with and accommodating Arab landowners across whose land portions of the fence crosses, environmentalists, and archeologists concerned about damage to archeological sites.

It was during an IDF briefing at the West Bank border crossing at Kalkilla, which is said to be among the most dangerous areas of terrorist penetration into Israel at the moment, that it suddenly and unexpectedly became clear just why there’s a fence and, at points like this one, large fortress-like walls.

Several IDF soldiers arrived to inform us that we must move to a safer location because they said intelligence indicated there could be sniper fire in the area.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The alert came on the heels of suspected members of the Hamas Izzedine Al Qassam Brigades having crossed into Israel from the southern West Bank town of Hebron the day before. At a shopping mall in Dimona, one of the two terrorists had detonated his bomb-packed vest, killing one woman and injuring ten other persons. His accomplice was killed by police while trying to ignite his suicide vest.

In the streets of Gaza City, children were shown on Info-live TV handing out flowers and candy to celebrate the bombing, a familiar ritual after mass casualty attacks.

Meanwhile, during an IDF counterterrorist operation south of Jenin, three armed terrorist operatives were identified. Two were killed in a shootout. All were found to have rifles in their possession.

According to the IDF briefer while we were at Kalkilla, intelligence indicated that the Hamas terrorists responsible for the bombing in Dimona had crossed the border from the southern West Bank into Israel at a location where security fencing has not yet been built.

According to an IDF security fence report provided to HSToday.us, “due to the difficulties they encounter in the northern West Bank, the terrorist organizations are trying to divert the penetration routes of the terrorists into the southern West Bank region and to the security fence’s two edge zones, where a continuous buffer zone has not yet been established. Penetration into Israel proper through these edge zones and, mainly, through the southern West Bank, has … become the main pattern of activity of terrorist infrastructures in the northern West Bank.”

IDF said “in about half of the developing terrorist attacks thwarted since the establishment of the buffer zone, the terrorists intended to infiltrate into Israel proper through the southern West Bank region.”

With the terrorism that had just occurred in mind, and with a clear understanding of the Israeli culture and national experience that’s been forged by decades of familiarity with terrorism on their own soil – including many dozens of deadly suicide bombings in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and many other major cities just as cosmopolitan as cities in the US – and it’s not at all difficult to understand the urgency of the Israelis to finally erect a barrier between them and the land from where the majority of the terrorists attacking Israel have originated.

Israel’s security fence program was conceived by Israel’s National Security Council and first approved by Israel’s defense cabinet in July 2001.

“At that point, the concept was to prevent illegal entry into Israel through seizure, interrogation, and arrest by police,” states the 29-page document on the security fence provided to HSToday.us by the head of IDF’s North American Desk, Capt. Noa Meir.

“In the months that followed,” the report states, “with the rise in the number of terror attacks it became apparent that the ability of the IDF and the police to stop illegal entry into Israel depended on the existence of a contiguous barrier. For this reason, in April 2002, when the responsibility for building the security fence was placed with the Ministry of Defense, the original plan underwent modification based on the principle of continuity.”

According to the IDF report, “in areas where the fence has been completed, it has already proven its effectiveness with a major decrease of over 90 percent in terror attacks carried out successfully.”

Furthermore, the report states, “the fence has been defined by terrorists who were intercepted before they carried out their deadly mission, as the prime obstacle obstructing them from entering Israel.”

According to the IDF Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) at the Center for Special Studies where I met with Deputy Director and Senior Researcher Dr. Yoram Kahati, “a comparative analysis of the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Palestinian terrorist infrastructures based in the northern West Bank indicates a sharp decline in the number of terrorists attacks perpetrated in Israel since the construction of the security fence.”