Israel told several of its Arab neighbors that it would establish a "buffer zone" north to south on the Gaza Strip after the war to prevent further attacks from Hamas or other terrorist groups.
Jerusalem has informed Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey of the plans, according to Reuters.
A source told the Times of Israel that “Israel wants this buffer zone between Gaza and Israel from the north to the south to prevent any Hamas or other [terrorists] from infiltrating or attacking Israel,” one of the sources said.
Not surprisingly, the Arabs objected to the plan. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. would not support any reduction in Gaza territory after the war. But with Arab states refusing to form a peacekeeping force to take over security for Gaza from the Israelis, Netanyahu has no real option but to create a buffer. Israel found out the hard way that fences are ineffective at keeping Israeli citizens safe.
As for the U.S., White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said “We don’t support any reduction of the geographic limits of Gaza… Gaza must remain Palestinian land, and cannot be reduced,” Kirby said during a press briefing.
Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters that the buffer zone plan was more detailed than that. He said the three tiers involved destroying Hamas, demilitarising Gaza, and "de-radicalizing the enclave."
Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states have voiced fears that Israel wants to squeeze Palestinians out of Gaza, repeating the dispossession of land Palestinians suffered when Israel was created in 1948. The Israeli government denies any such aim.
A senior Israeli security source said the buffer zone idea was "being examined", adding: "It is not clear at the moment how deep this will be and whether it could be 1 km or 2 km or hundreds of metres (inside Gaza)."
Any encroachment into Gaza, which is about 40 km (25 miles) long and between about 5 km (3 miles) and 12 km (7.5 miles) wide, would cram its 2.3 million people into an even smaller area.
The U.S. and Arab states are questioning whether Israel can fully eliminate Hamas. Indeed, the prospect of "deradicalizing the enclave" is a pipe dream. The Palestinians have been radicalized for 75 years and aren't going to be dissuaded from their goal to eliminate the state of Israel any time soon.
"Israel is ready to pay a costly price to expel and evict Hamas completely from Gaza to other countries in the region similar to what it did in Lebanon, but it's not the same. Getting rid of Hamas is difficult and not certain," said another of the regional officials familiar with the discussions.
It remains to be seen whether or not Israel will be vouchsafed the time it would take to get rid of Hamas "completely." There are already noises coming from the Biden administration that sound like pushing Israel for a ceasefire. The $14 billion aid package to Israel might contain some conditions that could upend Israel's plans and shorten the time that Israel has to achieve its war aims.
In the U.S., a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin asking the administration to send hospital ships to Gaza to treat wounded civilians.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 55 Congress members penned a letter to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urging him to deploy a pair of hospital ships that are in the US Army’s possession to treat wounded civilians from Gaza.
The letter was organized by Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider and Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt.
It called for the ships to be deployed to “the waters off Gaza,” though this is not likely due to the damage sustained by Gaza’s port in Israeli airstrikes. Moreover, the port isn’t suited for the docking of such large ships.
Considering that most hospitals in Gaza are non-operational, this is a compassionate idea. Women and children should never be forced to bear the brunt of war.
