Loveday Morris, Sarah Cahlan and Jonathan Baran
Israel’s announcement that 21 soldiers died in Gaza this week as they came under attack while rigging two buildings with explosives included an unexpected revelation — that the military was pushing ahead with a controversial plan to create a “buffer zone” along its border with Gaza by demolishing buildings in the area.
While officials had floated the idea on numerous occasions, Tuesday’s comments by the Israel Defense Forces were the first public confirmation that the strategy was in motion.
“It’s one of the additional efforts or layers of security that are being implemented after Oct. 7,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a spokesman for the IDF until earlier this month.
The U.S. has been vocally opposed to the creation of a buffer zone, saying there should be no permanent change to Palestinian territory. Human rights groups say the destruction of civilian homes and farms could amount to war crimes.
Here’s what to know:
What Israel has said
The IDF said the soldiers killed Monday near the southern city of Khan Younis were part of a demolition crew that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, causing the explosives to detonate and bringing the two buildings down on top of them.
“The forces were removing structures and terrorist infrastructure” about 650 yards from the border fence, said IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, to “create the security conditions for the return of the residents of the south to their homes.”
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said the troops had died “in the buffer zone between the Israeli communities and Gaza.”
Before Oct. 7, Israeli border guards enforced a 330-yard buffer zone around the length of the 36-mile fence, though Palestinians could farm in the area. Israeli officials now argue that lax enforcement of the zone enabled Hamas to break through the border fence on Oct. 7.
In the months leading up to the attack, Israeli border units reported seeing people approaching the barrier with maps, appearing to study it for weak spots.
The military has declined to give further details on the buffer zone, including the depth of the area it plans to clear. “This is part of the imperative actions that are needed in order to implement a defense plan that will provide improved security in Southern Israel,” the IDF said in a statement Wednesday.
Conricus said his understanding is that the zone will extend just over half a mile from the border — more than double the size of the prewar buffer area. “In some areas it might be wider, in some areas it might be a little less,” he said.
A total of 2,850 buildings once stood in the planned buffer zone, according to Israel’s Channel 12, and the IDF has already destroyed roughly 1,100 buildings. The IDF declined to comment.
Israeli officials have been lobbying for the creation of an expanded buffer zone since the beginning of the conflict — providing another militarized layer between the enclave and the kibbutzim that were overrun by militants.
“At the end of this war, not only will Hamas no longer be in Gaza, but the territory of Gaza will also decrease,” then-Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio on Oct. 18.
A few days later, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former intelligence chief, said the plan was for a “fire zone” where no Palestinians will be allowed to enter.
What videos and satellite imagery show
Videos of what appear to be IDF forces carrying out controlled demolitions of buildings, some near the border, have circulated for months.
In a video posted online Dec. 12 and verified by The Post, Israeli soldiers can be heard shouting and clapping as a school in northern Gaza is blown up.
The school, which the IDF said was used as a Hamas outpost, was about a mile from the border fence. Satellite imagery from Jan. 20 shows damage to the school and other nearby buildings, especially to the north and east.
Other videos posted online in mid-January and verified by The Post show the destruction of several residential buildings in As Sureij, an agricultural area in Khan Younis, about one kilometer from the fence. In one video, a drone rises above the rooftops, capturing the moment when roughly 10 buildings go up in smoke and flames. In another video, about 11 structures are demolished at once. Satellite imagery from Planet shows the buildings completely flattened.
United States response
The United States has consistently said the size of the Palestinian territories should not be reduced after the current conflict.
“So if any proposed buffer zone was inside Gaza, that would be a violation of that principle and something we oppose,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in December.
Israel has informed the United States that the buffer zone being constructed inside Gaza is only a temporary security accommodation to eliminate Hamas firing positions close to the border, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic communications.
Speaking during a visit to Nigeria on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. had been clear in “our opposition to the forced displacement of people,” but added that it’s “appropriate” that security measures are taken so Israelis can return to their homes in the south.
“If there need to be transitional arrangements to enable that to happen, that’s one thing,” he said. “But when it comes to the permanent status of Gaza going forward … we remain clear about not encroaching on its territory.”
The IDF declined to comment on whether the buffer zone would be temporary.
Conricus said he expected it would be enforced for as long as there were militant groups present in Gaza. IDF officials have said the war against Hamas could last for years.
Reaction from rights advocates
Videos of IDF soldiers blowing up swaths of buildings in Gaza were included in South Africa’s recent filing to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of genocide.
“The scale of destruction in Gaza, the mass targeting of family homes and civilians … all make clear that genocidal intent is both understood and is being put into practice,” said South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, referring to a video of 50 buildings being destroyed in the eastern Shujaiya district.
Israel has denied what it says are “false and baseless” claims by South Africa and has defended the demolitions as essential to dismantling Hamas’s infrastructure.
“Civilian properties are protected under international humanitarian law,” said Basel al-Sourani, an advocacy officer for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. “These houses are empty and nobody is in them. Why are they making these explosions other than part of their plan of forced displacement?”
Israeli’s prewar buffer zone had encompassed more than 40 percent of Gaza’s farmland, said Sourani, blocking farmers from their fields for more than a decade. In 2006, a deal brokered by the International Red Cross allowed them to return to their land.
“Now with this 1-kilometer buffer they are talking about, and I’m sure it’s more, what are we going to do?” Sourani wondered. His family farm, which includes some 10,000 olive tress and sits around a mile and a half from the border, has already been bulldozed, he said.
“Not a branch of an olive tree is left.”
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