Israel flattens border area to create new buffer zone

Satellite photos show new demolition along a one-kilometer-wide path on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, according an analysis and expert reports

Satellite photos show new demolition along a one-kilometer-wide path on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, according an analysis and expert reports. The destruction comes as Israel has said it wants to establish a buffer zone there, over international objections, further tearing away at land the Palestinians want for a state.

The demolition along the path represents only a sliver of the wider damage from the Israel-Hamas war seen in Gaza that one assessment suggests has damaged or destroyed half of all the buildings within the coastal enclave.

Israeli leaders have signalled that they would like to establish a buffer zone as a defensive measure, which they contend could prevent a repeat of the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas.

Israel’s military declined to answer whether it is carving out a buffer zone when asked, only saying it “takes various imperative actions that are needed in order to implement a defence plan that will provide improved security in southern Israel.” However, the military has acknowledged it has demolished buildings throughout the area.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing internal deliberations, said a “temporary security buffer zone” is under construction. It’s unclear whether it would include barriers or empty stretches of patrolled land. But the scope of the demolitions calls into question how temporary the possible buffer zone will be.

Gaza has a nearly 60km border with Israel, with its back up against the Mediterranean Sea. Creating that buffer zone would take some 60 sq km out of the enclave, which has a total landmass of about 360 sq km. Toward the southern part of the Gaza Strip, much of the land in the imagined buffer zone is farmland that abuts the vast $1 billion border barrier constructed on Israeli land that separates it from the territory. But near the town of Khirbet Khuzaa, where the border turns to the northwest, it’s a different story.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC show significant destruction of buildings and land bulldozed in a roughly six-square-kilometer area. Just over four kilometers north, farmland has been torn up into bare dirt along where the potential buffer zone would sit. Farther north is an area in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp. There, Israeli reservists preparing explosives to demolish two buildings near the Israeli border were killed in January when a militant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a tank nearby.