Israel controls 50% of Gaza as Palestinians get squeezed into shrinking wedges of land

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint successful the Gaza Strip since relaunching its warfare against Hamas past month. It present controls much than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land.

The largest contiguous country the service controls is astir the Gaza border, wherever the subject has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the constituent of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups. This subject buffer portion has doubled successful size successful caller weeks.

Israel has depicted its tightening grip arsenic a impermanent necessity to unit Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught that started the war. But the onshore Israel holds, which includes a corridor that divides the territory's northbound from south, could beryllium utilized for wielding semipermanent control, quality rights groups and Gaza experts say.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said past week that adjacent aft Hamas is defeated, Israel volition support information power successful Gaza and propulsion Palestinians to leave.

The demolition adjacent to the Israeli borderline and the systematic enlargement of the buffer portion has been going connected since the warfare began 18 months ago, 5 Israeli soldiers told The Associated Press.

“They destroyed everything they could, they changeable everything that looks functioning ... (the Palestinians) volition person thing to travel back, they volition not travel back, never,” a worker deployed with a vessel squad guarding the demolition teams said. He and 4 different soldiers spoke to the AP connected information of anonymity for fearfulness of reprisals.

A study documenting the accounts of soldiers who were successful the buffer portion was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A fistful of soldiers -- including immoderate who besides spoke to AP -- described watching the service crook the portion into a immense wasteland.

“Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the subject laid the groundwork for aboriginal Israeli power of the area,” said the group.

Asked astir the soldiers’ accounts, the Israeli service said it is acting to support its state and particularly to amended information successful confederate communities devastated by the Oct. 7 attack, successful which immoderate 1,200 radical were killed and 251 taken hostage. The service said it does not question to harm civilians successful Gaza, and that it abides by planetary law.

Carving Gaza into sections

In the aboriginal days of the war, Israeli troops forced Palestinians from communities adjacent the borderline and destroyed the onshore to make a buffer portion much than a kilometer (0.62 miles) deep, according to Breaking The Silence.

Its troops besides seized a swath of onshore crossed Gaza known arsenic the Netzarim Corridor that isolated the north, including Gaza City, from the remainder of the narrow, coastal strip, location to much than 2 cardinal people.

When Israel resumed the warfare past month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it arsenic acold arsenic 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into Gaza successful immoderate places, according to a representation issued by the military.

The buffer portion and the Netzarim Corridor marque up astatine slightest 50% of the strip, said Yaakov Garb, a prof of biology studies astatine Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian onshore usage patterns for decades.

Last week, Netanyahu said Israel intends to make different corridor that slices crossed confederate Gaza, cutting disconnected the metropolis of Rafah from the remainder of the territory. Israel’s power of Gaza is adjacent greater taking into relationship areas wherever it precocious ordered civilians to evacuate up of planned attacks.

Neighborhoods turned into rubble

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians utilized to unrecorded successful the onshore that present makes up Israel's buffer zone, an country that was cardinal to Gaza's cultivation output.

Satellite images amusement erstwhile dense neighborhoods turned to rubble, arsenic good arsenic astir a twelve caller Israeli service outposts since the ceasefire ended.

When the ceasefire was announced successful January, Nidal Alzaanin went backmost to his location successful Beit Hanoun successful bluish Gaza. His spot stood connected the borderline of the buffer portion and laic successful ruins.

All that remains is simply a photograph of him and his woman connected their wedding day, a drafting of his son’s look connected a porcelain sheet and the carcass of a 150-year-old sycamore histrion planted by his great-grandfather. His greenhouse was reduced to twisted scraps of metal.

The 55-year-old husbandman pitched a structure successful the rubble, hoping to rebuild his life. But erstwhile Israel resumed its run and seized his land, helium was again uprooted.

“It took 20 years to physique a location and wrong 5 minutes they destroyed each my dreams and my children’s dreams,” helium said from Gaza City, wherever helium present shelters.

Israel’s bombardment and crushed offensives passim the warfare person near immense swaths of Gaza’s cities and towns destroyed. But the razing of spot wrong the buffer portion has been much methodical and extensive, soldiers said.

The 5 soldiers who spoke to the AP said Israeli troops were ordered to destruct farmland, irrigation pipes, crops and trees arsenic good arsenic thousands of buildings, including residential and nationalist structures, truthful that militants had obscurity to hide.

Several soldiers said their units demolished much buildings than they could count, including ample concern complexes. A soda mill was leveled, leaving shards of solid and star panels strewn connected the ground.

Soldier alleges buffer portion was a ‘kill' zone

The soldiers said the buffer portion had nary marked boundaries, but that Palestinians who entered were changeable at.

The worker with the vessel squad said an armored bulldozer flattened onshore creating a “kill zone” and that anyone who came wrong 500 meters of the tanks would beryllium shot, including women and children.

Visibly shaken, helium said galore of the soldiers acted retired of vengeance for the Oct. 7 attack.

“I came determination due to the fact that they termination america and present we’re going to termination them. And I recovered retired that we’re not lone sidesplitting them. We’re sidesplitting them, we’re sidesplitting their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs, and we destroyed their houses,” helium said.

The service said its attacks are based connected quality and that it avoids “as overmuch arsenic possible, harm to non-combatants.”

Long-term hold?

It is unclear however agelong Israel intends to clasp the buffer portion and different territory wrong Gaza.

In announcing the caller corridor crossed confederate Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel aims to unit Hamas to merchandise the remaining 59 hostages, of whom 35 are believed dead. He besides said the warfare tin lone extremity erstwhile Hamas is destroyed and its leaders permission Gaza, astatine which constituent Israel would instrumentality power of information successful the territory.

Then, Netanyahu said, Israel would instrumentality U.S. President Donald Trump’s telephone to determination Palestinians from Gaza, what Israel calls “voluntary emigration.”

Some Israel analysts accidental the intent of the buffer portion isn’t to inhabit Gaza, but to unafraid it until Hamas is dismantled. “This is thing that immoderate sane state volition bash with respect to its borders erstwhile the authorities borders a hostile entity,” said Kobi Michael, a elder researcher astatine 2 Israeli deliberation tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.

But rights radical accidental forcibly displacing radical is simply a imaginable warfare transgression and transgression against humanity. Within Gaza’s buffer zones, specifically, it amounts to “ethnic cleansing,” due to the fact that it was wide radical would ne'er beryllium allowed to return, said Nadia Hardman, a researcher astatine Human Rights Watch.

Israel called the accusations baseless and said it evacuates civilians from combat areas to support them.

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Associated Press newsman Michael Biesecker contributed from Washington.