“Israel” Informs Arab States It Wants Buffer Zone in Post-War Gaza
By Staff, Agencies
The apartheid “Israeli” entity has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends, Egyptian and regional sources said.
According to three regional sources, the entity related its plans to its neighbors Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalized ties with the “Israeli” entity in 2020.
They also said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have ties with the entity and which halted a US-mediated normalization process after the Gaza war flared on Oct. 7, had been informed. The sources did not say how the information reached Riyadh, which officially does not have direct communication channels with the entity. Non-Arab Turkey was also told, the sources said.
The initiative does not indicate an imminent end to the “Israeli” entity’s aggression – which resumed on Friday after a seven-day truce – but it shows the entity is reaching out beyond established Arab mediators, such as Egypt or Qatar, as it seeks to shape a post-war Gaza.
No Arab states have shown any willingness to police or administer Gaza in future and most have roundly condemned the entity’s aggression that has killed more than 15,000 people and levelled swathes of Gaza's urban areas.
"‘Israel’ wants this buffer zone between Gaza and ‘Israel’ from the north to the south to prevent any Hamas or other 'militants' from infiltrating or attacking ‘Israel’," said a senior regional security official, one of the three regional sources who asked not to be identified by nationality.
The Egyptian, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Jordanian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A UAE official did not respond directly when asked if Abu Dhabi had been told about the buffer zone, but said: "The UAE will support any future post-war arrangements agreed upon by all the concerned parties" to achieve stability and a Palestinian state.
Asked about plans for a buffer zone, Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters: "The plan is more detailed than that. It's based on a three-tier process for the day after Hamas."
Outlining the “Israeli” government's position, he said the three tiers involved destroying Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza and “de-radicalizing” the enclave.
"A buffer zone may be part of the demilitarization process," he said. He declined to offer details when asked whether those plans had been raised with international partners, including Arab states.
Arab states have dismissed as impossible the entity’s goal of wiping out Hamas, saying it was more than simply a resistance force that could be defeated.
The “Israeli” entity has suggested in the past it was considering a buffer zone inside Gaza, but the sources said it was now presenting them to Arab states as part of its future security plans for Gaza. “Israeli” troops withdrew from the enclave in 2005.
A US official, who declined to be identified, said the entity had "floated" the buffer zone idea without saying to whom. But the official also repeated Washington's opposition to any plan that reduced the size of Palestinian territory.
Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states have voiced fears that the “Israeli” entity wants to squeeze Palestinians out of Gaza, repeating the dispossession of land Palestinians suffered when the “Israeli” entity was created in 1948.
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 meters [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.
