CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) designated a special security zone west of the border fence with the Gaza Strip, which is off limits to Palestinians.

Earlier in the week, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Palestinian-based claims that Israel breached the cease-fire eight times by firing on Palestinians approaching the border fence.

Concerns that Gaza-based terrorists plan to take advantage of the temporary cease-fire to plant more explosive devices along the border, as they have in the past, prompted the IDF to designate the security zone.

Another concern is that Hamas will follow the example of Hezbollah -- its Lebanese-based counterpart, also Iranian funded and trained, -- to build up its base along the border for future attacks, as Hezbollah did between the IDF's pullout from southern Lebanon in 2000 and the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

Defense Ministry Diplomatic Military Bureau head Major General Amos Gilad, Israel's representative in the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, informed Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman of the decision.

Gilad told Suleiman that IDF troops will fire warning shots at Palestinians entering the area.

Suleiman, in turn, conveyed the message to Hamas officials, who objected to the plan, claiming that farmers cannot get to their fields. But that situation didn't begin with the 10 day-old cease-fire.

Palestinian terror attacks along the border are the chief reason farmers cannot get to their fields there.

In the past, Hamas has either sent farmers or disguised gunmen as farmers to plant bombs along the border and observe the movement of IDF troops.

Source: Haaretz