A view over ruined buildings within the northern Gaza Strip as seen from a place on the Israeli facet of the border on April 2, southern Israel. Protection Minister Israel Katz has mentioned Israel will “seize intensive territory” to be added to “buffer zones” within the Gaza Strip after the navy expanded its floor assault.
Amir Levy/Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Amir Levy/Getty Photos
DUBAI — Greater than half of the Gaza Strip is now not accessible to Palestinians as Israel’s navy takes over bigger areas of the territory and absorbs them into what it calls safety zones alongside the entire territory’s borders.
Nowhere is that this extra seen than in southern Gaza, the place Israel’s protection minister says the navy is seizing an space as soon as house to a quarter-million individuals and turning it right into a buffer zone. The transfer cuts off the Palestinian border metropolis of Rafah — and certainly the entire of the Gaza Strip – from neighboring Egypt.
Israel says its battle — which Gaza well being officers say has killed practically 51,000 Palestinians — is to strain Hamas to launch the remaining hostages among the many 251 taken within the lethal Oct. 7, 2023, assault. That Hamas-led assault killed nearly 1,200 individuals in Israel, in response to Israeli authorities.
The takeover of southern Gaza modifications its borders and essentially alters its map, surrounding the territory by Israel from all sides. Earlier than the battle, Gaza’s southern border with Egypt was the one crossing not solely managed by Israel.
Rafah was additionally a shelter in the course of the first months of the battle for greater than one million Palestinians and served as a lifeline for assist coming in from Egypt. It is also the place some individuals had been in a position to depart Gaza, together with these needing medical evacuation.
Israel’s navy is tightening its management over Gaza, significantly within the south, after saying months in the past that Hamas had been defeated there. Its return to battle has sparked criticism inside Israel, together with amongst reservists unwilling to report to responsibility.
Israel’s takeover of southern Gaza alters its map
In a go to to Rafah final week, Protection Minister Israel Katz informed troopers the complete southern swath could be became a buffer zone.
“All of Rafah shall be evacuated and there shall be a safety zone,” Katz mentioned in remarks confirmed by his workplace to NPR. “That is what we’re doing now.”
Israel’s navy says along with capturing a miles-wide space of territory within the south, it is also deepening and increasing its seizure of territory alongside Gaza’s northern border.
In his newest assertion, posted Sunday on social media, Katz mentioned if Hamas continues to refuse Israel’s phrases for a hostage deal, “Gaza will turn into smaller and extra remoted, and increasingly of its residents shall be pressured to evacuate from the preventing zones.”
Israel says that for years weapons had been smuggled to Hamas in tunnels that ran underneath the border from Egypt into Gaza. Egypt says it destroyed these tunnels years in the past.
Maps printed by the Israeli navy present a buffer zone in Rafah that constitutes a fifth of Gaza’s territory. Israel’s displacement of individuals from the south is among the largest territorial evacuation orders issued by the navy in 18 months of battle.
Gaza’s civil protection and paramedics say there are 14 households nonetheless trapped within the metropolis of Rafah, unable to flee.
Walid al-Mughayer, a resident of Rafah, says his household was fired on by Israeli forces within the metropolis on March 23 as they tried to heed Israeli evacuation orders. He noticed a baby killed and 5 individuals wounded by Israeli gunfire that day.
“We needed to return house from the gunfire,” he says. “For 5 days we had no recent water or meals … We needed to drink the fluid in cans of fava beans.”
He says the household finally made it to the town of Khan Younis a number of days later, however do not have tents or something to sleep on.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes this expansive zone being carved out in southern Gaza covers an space that is roughly 29 sq. miles. The newspaper stories Israeli officers haven’t but determined whether or not the complete space shall be designated a buffer zone that is off-limits to civilians, like different elements of Gaza, or whether or not will probably be absolutely leveled to the bottom with the complete metropolis of Rafah worn out.
NPR documented in January the aftermath of the navy’s extended invasion of Rafah, following its withdrawal from the town in the course of the non permanent ceasefire, from mid-January till mid-March. Most buildings had been broken or destroyed, together with its primary hospital.
A household sits in a destroyed constructing in Rafah on Jan. 25, 2025.
Anas Baba/NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Anas Baba/NPR
Israel seizes greater than half of Gaza’s territory
Along with increasing its buffer zones, Israel’s navy is dividing Gaza via two corridors. Throughout a lot of the battle it had remoted northern Gaza and Gaza Metropolis from the remainder of the territory with the Netzarim hall.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced lately a second dividing line, referred to as the Morag Hall, that cuts off Rafah and southern Gaza from the center of the territory and the massive metropolis of Khan Younis.
Yaakov Garb, an environmental research professor at Ben Gurion College in Israel, has examined the Israeli navy’s maps of Gaza and says roughly half the territory has been explicitly delineated as off-limits to Palestinians. He says there are extra less-explicit zones that Palestinians can’t enter, in response to these maps.
In different phrases, Garb says, the navy is including new buffer zones inside Gaza to already present buffer zones created within the battle, the place “a scientific type of leveling” of buildings may be seen in aerial and satellite tv for pc photographs.
He says the 2 navy corridors that lower via Gaza have created two enclaves, amounting to about half of Gaza’s territory, the place Palestinians are allowed to be.
“We have shifted to a regime through which you may have very intensive areas which can be functioning extra as massive moats round shrinking enclaves of the remaining Gazan inhabitants,” Garb says.
A report printed final week by an Israeli group referred to as Breaking the Silence, which collects the testimonies of Israeli navy veterans, describes buffer zones in Gaza that turned Palestinian demise zones “of huge proportions.” The report quotes “troopers and officers who took half in creating the perimeter” saying these border zones usually are not clearly marked nor outlined, “placing the lifetime of any Palestinian who crossed this imaginary line in danger.”
Buildings and agricultural land had been destroyed by the navy, turning buffer zones right into a wasteland, aerial photographs present and troopers say within the report.
When requested for touch upon the troopers’ testimonies, the navy replied that it acts in accordance with worldwide regulation. It says these buffer zones intention “to forestall the enemy from finishing up offensive terrorist actions” towards Israel.
The United Nations estimates a whole bunch of 1000’s of Palestinians have been newly displaced since Israel went again to battle on March 18. Most live in makeshift, flimsy tents, bombed-out colleges or in broken buildings. There’s additionally been a siege on Gaza for practically six weeks, with Israel barring the entry of all items, together with meals, medical provides and gas.
Because the ceasefire collapsed a month in the past, Gaza’s well being ministry says greater than 1,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and assaults, most of them ladies and kids.
Israel’s return to battle months after saying Hamas brigades had been defeated sparks dissent
A number of thousand present and former reservists, pilots, navy medical doctors, intelligence officers and others in safety in current days printed open letters final week calling for a change after all within the battle and the speedy return of hostages. The letters accuse Israel’s far-right authorities of favoring its personal slim political pursuits over the nation’s safety. Tens of 1000’s of Israelis have additionally protested the return to battle, saying it endangers the hostages’ lives in Gaza.
The primary group of reservists within the Air Drive whose letter sparked others had been dismissed from serving. In an announcement, Netanyahu has described them as a “radical fringe group,” accusing them with out proof of receiving overseas funds.
He mentioned the letters “had been written by a small handful of weeds, operated by foreign-funded organizations whose sole goal is to topple the right-wing authorities.”
Israel estimates 24 hostages are believed to nonetheless be alive in Gaza. A lot of the 251 hostages taken from Israel within the Hamas-led assault have been freed in negotiated exchanges throughout non permanent ceasefires. Hamas says it is prepared to launch all hostages if Israel agrees to completely finish the battle. Israel’s authorities has refused, saying it needs Hamas eradicated and disarmed.
Anas Baba reported from Gaza Metropolis.
