Israel 'plans to turn Rafah into a buffer zone'
The Israeli military plans to turn Rafah, a densely populated Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip, into a buffer zone, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The city on the border with Egypt is thousands of years old and was home to 200,000 Palestinians before the Israeli war on Gaza started in October 2023.
"According to defense sources, it has yet to be decided whether the entire area will simply be designated a buffer zone that is off-limits to civilians - as has been done in other parts of the border area - or whether the area will be fully cleared and all buildings demolished, effectively wiping out the city of Rafah," Haaretz reported.
Israeli ground and aerial forces have been relentlessly attacking Rafah since they resumed bombing the besieged enclave last month.
They have killed nearly 1,500 Palestinians since then, and more than 50,800 since October 2023.
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Troops have raided prominent residential neighbourhoods in the city and indiscriminately killed civilians, including executing medics, while forcing tens of thousands to flee on foot.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the capture of an area that he referred to as the "Morag axis" between Khan Younis and Rafah, stretching from east to west across the Gaza Strip.
It includes parts of what the Israeli military had previously designated as a "humanitarian zone", where they had told internally displaced Palestinians to seek refuge.
Gush Katif, an illegal Israeli settlement dismantled in 2005, was built outside Rafah, in an area in which the Israeli military now seeks to turn into a buffer zone.
According to defence sources that spoke to Haaretz, the move aims to leave the Gaza Strip an enclave surrounded by Israeli territory, separating it from Egypt.
It was also taken to “increase pressure on Hamas”.
Kill zones
The report also notes that it has not yet been decided whether to completely erase the city of Rafah by demolishing all buildings and clearing the area, or simply designate it off-limits to civilians.
Since its re-invasion of Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli military has declared the entire boundary of the Gaza Strip a “buffer zone.”
Within this zone, Israeli forces have been instructed to demolish agricultural land, destroy residential blocks, and open fire on anyone approaching the area.
This was revealed earlier this week in a report by the Israeli veterans' group Breaking the Silence (BtS).
The report, titled "The Perimeter," details how the army established a zone between 800 and 1,500 meters wide and up to 1.5 km deep into Gaza, turning large swathes of land into "massive kill zones."
According to interviews with Israeli soldiers featured in the report, the borders of these zones were constantly shifting and never communicated to Palestinians.
"Initially, the IDF (Israeli army) designated a certain area that was forbidden to cross. The IDF sets a line, and anyone who crosses it is considered a threat," said one reserve commander.
"It happened in the Netzarim Corridor and along the border, too. There are no clear rules of engagement. There's room for discretion on the ground, ultimately decided by the company commander or battalion commander."
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