Israel to build fence along Syrian border

Israel to build fence along Syrian border UPDATED: Jan 7, 2013 09:36 GMT As regional fears mount over spillover from Syria's civil war, Israel plans to build a fence along its border with the embattled country. The announcement came during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's weekly Cabinet address, in which he cited the construction of a 230-kilometer fence along Israel's southern border with Egypt. Read more: Scavenging for food, Syrian children witness war "We intend to erect an identical fence, with a few changes based on the actualterritory, along the Golan Heights. We know that on other side of our border with Syria today, the Syrian army has moved away, and in its place, global jihad forces have moved in," Netanyahu said, according to a transcript of his remarks. "Therefore, we will defend this border against both infiltration and terrorism, just as we are successfully doing on the Sinai border." Syrian opposition and government sources have reported that the extremist al-Nusra Front, which the United States has designated as a terrorist group with links to al Qaeda in Iraq, has taken part in some of the fighting in Syria. Watch: Lost youth for Syria's war witnesses Netanyahu also said the Syrian government is "very unstable" and expressed concerns about the possibleuse of chemical weapons. Israel seized the Golan Heights, along with the WestBank, Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, during the 1967 war. The Sinai has since been returned to Egypt. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a move not recognized by the international community and condemned by Syria, which still claims the land.