Israel will keep Gaza buffer zone, minister says

Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday, as efforts to revive a ceasefire agreement faltered.

Since resuming military operations last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad “security zone” extending deep into Gaza and squeezing more than 2 million Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline.

“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders.

“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”

In a summary of its operations over the past month, the Israeli military said it now controls 30% of the tiny Palestinian territory.

In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized the border city of Rafah and pushed inland up to the so-called “Morag corridor” that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea, between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis.

It already held a wide corridor across the central Netzarim area and has extended a buffer zone all around the frontier hundreds of meters (yards) inland, including the Shejaia area just to the east of Gaza City in the north.

Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including many senior commanders of the Palestinian group, since March 18 but the operation has alarmed the United Nations and European countries.

More than 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since hostilities resumed on March 18 after two months of relative calm, according to U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, and Israeli airstrikes and bombardments have killed at least 1,630 people.

Medical charity MSF said Gaza had become a “mass grave” with humanitarian groups struggling to provide aid. “We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Amande Bazerolle, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement.

Katz said Israel, which has blocked the delivery of relief supplies into the territory since early March, was creating infrastructure to allow distribution through civilian companies at a later date, but the blockade on aid would remain in place.

He said Israel would pursue a plan to allow Gazans who wished to leave the enclave to do so, although it remains unclear which countries would be willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians.