Netanyahu tours Israeli-Egyptian border

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has toured part of the border area with Egypt, and says he will ask his cabinet to move ahead on a planned border fence.

Netanyahu toured part of Israel's 250-kilometer frontier with Egypt on Thursday. The Prime Minister said migrants were changing Israel's "Jewish and democratic character", and said Israel "will decide to fund and to take action to create a border fence."

The proposed fence would cost 400 million US dollars and would be erected to prevent the entry of illegal migrants.

The structure would come in addition to a massive fence surrounding the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, as well as a separation barrier that snakes along parts of Israel's more than 680-kilometer frontier with the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks through a telescope during his tour along the Israel-Egypt border, southern Israel Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010.(AP Photo/Ariel Jerozolimski, Pool)