NEW YORK, February 1. /TASS/. Israeli army units are demolishing Palestinian buildings close to the border to create a security ‘buffer zone’, The New York Times reports citing Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to it, since November, Israel has carried out at least 33 controlled demolitions, destroying several hundred buildings. The paper quoted the sources as saying that "Israel wanted to demolish Palestinian buildings close to the border as part of an effort to create a security ‘buffer zone’ inside Gaza, making it harder for fighters to carry out cross-border attacks like the ones in southern Israel on Oct. 7."

In turn, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said that soldiers are "locating and destroying terror infrastructures embedded, among other things, inside buildings" in civilian areas.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.