The buffer zone would reduce the territory of Gaza by 60 square kilometers.
Israel appears to be building a buffer zone about a kilometer deep inside the Gaza border. This is what the American concludes news agency AP based on satellite images and his interviews.
AP did not get an answer from the Israel Defense Forces to the question about the creation of a buffer zone. It was stated that “the defense forces are working to implement a defense plan that will improve the security of southern Israel.”
The border between Gaza and Israel is 60 kilometers long. The buffer zone would drain 60 square kilometers out of Gaza’s 360 square kilometers.
In the southern part of Gaza, the buffer zone would eat mostly farmland from Gazan farmers. In the north, the situation is different.
According to AP, there are already areas of several square kilometers that have been bulldozed and razed to the ground on the way to the zone. Last week, 21 Israelis were killed when they were setting explosives in a possible buffer zone to blow up two buildings.
A spokesperson for the US State Department says Matthew Miller says the US has talked about the zone with Israel.
– We oppose any kind of reduction of the Gaza area, Miller said at the ministry’s press conference.
US analysts have noted that at least 1,329 buildings have already been destroyed or damaged in the potential zone. An expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem Adi Ben-Nun estimates that around 2,850 buildings would be destroyed under the demolition zone.
The destruction in the buffer zone is only part of the destruction in Gaza as a whole. Ben-Nun estimated that 80,000 buildings would have been destroyed during the four-month war. US researchers Corey Scher from New York University and Jamon Van Den Hoek The University of Oregon estimated the number of destroyed buildings at around 143,900.
The British broadcasting company BBC arrived at similar figures earlier this week in his own report. The BBC calculated that there are 144,000 to 175,000 destroyed or damaged houses in Gaza, or 50 to 61 percent of the buildings.
The worst destroyed area is the Gaza City area.
AP, Reuters