Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
The Israeli military is now occupying over half of the land area of Gaza after having massively expanded the “buffer zone” spanning the entirety of Gaza’s border and systematically destroyed everything in it, as Israeli and U.S. officials are pushing a plan for the total ethnic cleansing of the besieged enclave.
The buffer zone, which Israel has forcibly evacuated of all Palestinians, now spans the entirety of the southern city of Rafah and huge swaths of the region that borders Israel and Egypt. Israeli forces have reportedly worked to double the size of the buffer zone just in recent weeks, as Israel has unilaterally ended the ceasefire and resumed its fierce bombardments.
The rapid expansion of Israel’s buffer zones is seemingly the latest phase of Israeli officials’ push for the forcible evacuation of all Palestinians from Gaza. Last month, Israeli security cabinet officials approved the plan for the wholesale evacuation of Gaza, in line with Trump’s plan to raze Gaza and empty it of Palestinians in order to build a luxury vacation destination on its ruins.
Israel has maintained a buffer zone in Gaza for decades, and began drastically expanding it amid the genocide. As of last May, it encompassed roughly 16 percent of Gaza’s land, according to Amnesty International, with Israeli forces destroying everything in the zone — including civilian infrastructure like schools, mosques and cemeteries, as well as agricultural land.
On Monday, Israeli group Breaking the Silence published a report finding, based on soldiers’ testimonies, that the destruction of everything in the buffer zone was systematic; the creation of the zone, it says, “in practice meant razing the area to the ground.”
The goal is to destroy everything “critical for the fabric of life in the Gaza Strip” and for reconstruction after the genocide, in service of Israel’s seeming wider goal of permanent occupation of the Strip. One soldier, a sergeant first class, said that a platoon of soldiers would raze between 40 to 50 houses a week.
“Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories; you name it — it needs to be flat. That’s the order,” one soldier said. Another, a first sergeant, stationed in north Gaza early in the genocide, said the idea is to “create a sterile strip” where there used to be farmland and groves.
Another soldier, a warrant officer also stationed in north Gaza, described their commands visually: When the army is done with the area, it should look like the aftermath of the atomic bombing of “Hiroshima. That’s what I’m saying, Hiroshima.” In other words, soldiers are aiming for complete and total devastation.
The report also reinforced previous findings that Israeli forces are told to treat any Palestinian in the Strip as a legitimate target, with no regard for whether or not they’re a civilian. Another sergeant first class said that their commands were, “If you detect a threat or something — you shoot,” with a “threat” being classified as any hot spot seen on thermal binoculars.
“Sometimes there’s a specific ID from the scouts or radar or whatever, and then there could be a specific target to shoot. But sometimes it’s like, I don’t know, we fired. What do you shoot at? Find something relevant and shoot at it,” another soldier said.
Important Message: Please Read
For 25 years, Truthout has survived by publishing impactful investigative journalism and analysis; distributing full editions 365 days a year; and building a community of readers who support us with small, hard-earned donations.
Eighty percent of our $3 million yearly budget comes from small donors alone. Of those, 8,000 readers support us with monthly donations. Back in 2018, when Facebook decided to suppress the circulation of posts made by organizations, thereby cutting readers off from seeing many articles shared by the news organizations they had intentionally decided to follow, Truthout’s total traffic declined by 40 percent, as nearly all of our traffic from that platform disappeared.
Now, Google has recently rolled out its AI search bar, providing AI summaries instead of directing readers to our site. Google Search is our single largest source of traffic; it’s the route by which nearly one third of our readers find us. Much like in 2018, a shocking 40 percent of our Google traffic has disappeared overnight.
It will not be easy for Truthout to shoulder this blow. Nor will it be easy for our peers and collaborators — news sites that depend on traffic and aren’t bankrolled by large corporations.
If you can support Truthout with a donation today, you can help us resist the AI onslaught. Please give today.