Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed his country’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70 percent of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast.
Speaking to a conference in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu said Israel was at fifty percent, moved to sixty, and his directive is to move to seventy, adding that Israel is pressing Hamas from all sides and will deal with the remnants.
Netanyahu describes the territory Israel has seized in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon as buffer zones that can stave off potential militant attacks following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault that set off the Gaza war. Palestinians view Israel’s widening Gaza buffer zone as part of a strategy to permanently displace them, pointing to remarks from senior ministers, including defence chief Israel Katz, saying they want to encourage voluntary migration from Gaza.
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Under an October U.S.-brokered truce that has failed to halt Israeli attacks or secure Hamas’ disarmament, Israeli troops were meant to withdraw to a Yellow Line demarcating the extent of their control, which put Israel in control of some 53 percent of Gaza with Hamas ruling the rest. However, Israel has unilaterally moved the concrete blocks marking the Yellow Line deeper into Hamas-controlled territory, and maps issued by the military in March showed an even bigger restricted area that analysts say cordons off around 64 percent of Gaza’s territory in total.
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