Israel controls 50% of Gaza while the Palestinians crowded in land districts in narrowing

Such Aviv, Israel (AP) – Israel has considerably widened its imprint in the Gaza Strip since Relatively his war against Hamas last month. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and tightens the Palestinians in narrowing of land districts.

The largest adjoining area that army control is around the Gaza border, where the soldiers have shaved Palestinian houses, agricultural land and infrastructure to the point of inhalingAccording to soldiers and Israeli rights groups. This military buffer area has doubled in recent weeks.

Israel has described its tightening temporary necessity to put pressure on Hamas By releasing the remaining hostages taken during October 7, 2023, an attack which sparked the war. But the land Israel holds, which includes a corridor which Divides the north of the southern territorycould be used for handling long -term control, according to human rights groups and Gaza experts.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that even after Hamas defeat Israel would keep security control in Gaza and pushed the Palestinians to leave.

The demolition close to the Israeli border and the systematic expansion of the buffer zone has been taking place since the start of the war 18 months ago, five Israeli soldiers at the Associated Press told.

“They destroyed everything they could, they turned everything that looks working … (The Palestinians) will have nothing to come back, they will not come back, never,” said a soldier with a tank team keeping the demolition teams. He and four other soldiers talked to the AP under the guise of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

A report documenting the accounts of the soldiers who were in the buffer area was published Monday in Breaking The Silence, a group of anti-occupation veterans. A handful of soldiers – some of whom also spoke to AP – described by looking at the army transforming the area into a large wasteland.

“Thanks to a generalized and deliberate destruction, the soldiers have laid the foundations for the future Israeli control in the region,” said the group.

Asked about the soldiers’ accounts, the Israeli army said it worked to protect its country and especially to improve security in the southern communities devastated by the October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages taken hostage. The army said that it was not looking to harm civilians in Gaza and that it respects international law.

Sculpt Gaza in sections

At the start of the war, the Israeli troops forced the Palestinians of the communities near the border and destroyed the land to create a buffer zone more than a kilometer (0.62 thousand) deep, according to Breaking The Silence.

His troops also seized a strip of land across Gaza known as The netzarim corridor This isolated the north, including the city of Gaza, from the rest of the narrow coastal strip, which houses more than 2 million people.

When Israel resumed war last month, he doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it up to 3 kilometers (1.8 thousand) in Gaza in certain places, according to a map published by the army.

The buffer area and the Netzarim corridor represent at least 50% of the band, said Yaakov Garb, professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has examined the models for using Israeli-Palestinian land for decades.

Last week, Netanyahu declared that Israel intended to create another corridor which contrasts in the south of Gaza, cutting the city of Rafah from the rest of the territory. The control of Israel on Gaza is even more important taking into account the areas where he recently ordered civilians to evacuate before the expected attacks.

The districts have transformed into rubble

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lived in the country that now make up the stamp area of ​​Israel, an area that was the key to the agricultural production of Gaza.

The satellite images show that dense districts have turned to rubble, as well as a dozen outposts of the Israeli army since the end of the ceasefire.

When the ceasefire was announced in January, Nidal Alzaanin returned home to Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza. His property was held on the edge of the buffer zone and lay in ruins.

All that remains is a photo of him and his wife on their wedding day, a drawing of his son’s face on a porcelain plate and the carcass of a 150-year-old sycamore tree planted by his great-grandfather. His greenhouse was reduced to twisted pieces of metal.

The 55 -year -old farmer launched a tent in the rubble, hoping to rebuild his life. But when Israel resumed his campaign and seized his lands, he was again uprooted.

“It took 20 years to build a house and within five minutes, they destroyed all my dreams and the dreams of my children,” he said from Gaza City, where he is home now.

The bombing of Israel and the offensives on the ground throughout the war have left large expanses of the cities and cities of Gaza. But shaving goods inside the buffer area was more methodical and extended, soldiers said.

The five soldiers who spoke at the AP said that Israeli troops had been ordered to destroy agricultural land, irrigation pipes, crops and trees as well as thousands of buildings, including residential and public structures, so that activists had nowhere to hide.

Several soldiers said their units had demolished more buildings than they could count, including large industrial complexes. A soda factory has been leveled, leaving screams of glass and solar panels scattered on the ground.

The soldier alleys that Buffer Zone was a “Kill” area

The soldiers said that the buffer zone had no marked borders, but that the Palestinians who entered were slaughtered.

The soldier of the tank team said that an armored bulldozer flattened land creating a “killing area” and that anyone who came less than 500 meters from the tanks would be shot, including women and children.

Visibly shaken, he said that many soldiers acted for revenge for the October 7 attack.

“I came there because they kill us and now we are going to kill them. And I discovered that we are not only killing them. We kill them, we kill their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs and we destroyed their homes,” he said.

The army said that its attacks are based on information and that it avoids “as much as possible, harm them to non-combatants”.

Hold in the long term?

It is not known how long Israel intends to hold the buffer zone and other territories inside Gaza.

By announcing the new corridor through southern Gaza, Netanyahu said that Israel aims to put pressure on Hamas to release the 59 remaining hostages, 35 of which died. He also declared that war can only end when Hamas is destroyed and that its leaders leave Gaza, to what extent Israel would take control of security in the territory.

Then, said Netanyahu, Israel would implement the call of American president Donald Trump to move the Palestinians from Gaza, which Israel calls “voluntary emigration”.

Some analysts from Israel say that the goal of the buffer area is not to occupy Gaza, but to secure it until Hamas is dismantled. “This is something that any healthy country will do with its borders when the State borders a hostile entity,” said Kobi Michael, principal researcher of two Israeli reflection groups, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Institut MISGAV.

But the rights for the defense of the rights says that the move of force is a potential war crime and a crime against humanity. In the buffer areas of Gaza, in particular, this is equivalent to “ethnic cleaning” because it was clear that people would never be allowed to return, said Nadia Hardman, researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Israel called the baseless accusations and said that it evacuating civilians from the combat zones to protect them.

___

Associated Press journalist Michael Biesecker contributed from Washington.