A senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the media that Israel is going to create a “security envelope” in Gaza once its military has dealt with Hamas.
An earlier report by Reuters claimed that the Israeli government had informed several countries about its plans for a “buffer zone” in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel launched its military operation against Hamas after Hamas carried out an alleged surprise incursion into the Jewish state, killing 1,200 people and abducting several hundred more.
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RT reports: Netanyahu’s war cabinet has named the complete eradication of the Islamist group from Gaza as its aim. No clear picture has emerged yet as to the enclave’s future, however.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Mark Regev said that “Israel will have to have a security envelope,” adding that “we can never again allow terrorists to cross the border and butcher our people the way they did on October 7.”
The official hastened to stress that “that is not Israel taking territory from Gaza,” describing the planned arrangement as “common sense.”
On Friday Reuters reported, citing several anonymous officials, that Israel had notified Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye that it intended to carve out a buffer zone in Gaza after the hostilities were over.
That same day, Israeli broadcaster Kan cited two informed sources in its report that Prime Minister Netanyahu had shared the security-envelope plans with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the previous day.
Another anonymous senior Israeli security source told Reuters that “it is not clear at the moment how deep this will be and whether it could be one kilometer or two kilometers, or hundreds of meters” inside the Palestinian enclave. Gaza is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) long and just 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) at its widest, and is home to some 2.3 million people.
