So you want a moat around the Gaza Strip? Here are the numbers
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA 7 August 2014

Contractor Itzik Rotem has been knocking on government doors to try to
interest them in his proposal to dig a trench around the Gaza Strip.

Here are the numbers:

1. Trench 40 meters deep, 30 meters wide.
2. Remove 500 million cubic meters of earth.
3. Fill the trench with 250 million cubic meters of desalinated water (salt
water would contaminate the ground water).
4. 10 million cubic meters of water a year would seep down the porous
trench, keeping the earth in the area of the trench moist and thus
seriously impairing tunneling operations passing underneath the trench.

Rotem estimates that the earthworks would take 13 months to complete

He explains that it would be a waste of time to dig an empty trench since
with the water table in the area well over 100 meters underground, any dry
trench will be readily bypassed by digging a tunnel a few meters beneath it.

This would not be a cheap project

Besides the cost of the earthworks a huge desalination plant would be
required and would take years to build. Besides the capital costs, the
desalinated water, produced by pumping sea water at high pressure through
membranes uses several kilowatt hours of electricity for every cubic meter
of desalinated water produced.
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