Israeli rights group says Israeli buffer zone in Gaza 'war crime'

JERUSALEM

An Israeli rights group said Friday that the army's buffer zone in Gaza constitutes a "war crime" because it will deprive Palestinians of movement in the area.

"To create the buffer zone, Israel is currently destroying almost everything in the area it has designated for it, including residential buildings, public structures such as schools, medical clinics and mosques, fields, groves and greenhouses," B'Tselem said in a report.

It noted that the planned buffer zone will stretch more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) with a 1 kilometer width, by which "the area will be off limits to Palestinians – even those who lived or cultivated fields in it before the war."

B'Tselem quoted Israeli soldiers who were in Gaza and indicated that "the demolitions are carried out to clear the way for a security zone rather than as a response to intelligence information or findings in the field."

The rights watchdog also quoted a study by Adi Ben Nun of the Geography Department at the Hebrew University, who said, "By 17 January 2024, the Israeli military demolished 1,072 of 2,824 structures located a kilometer or less from the border, most of which were homes."

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the report.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas. The ensuing Israeli war has killed more than 29,500 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

For the first time since its creation in 1948, Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, for its Gaza war.