TEL AVIV, March 30. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces is creating a security buffer zone on the border with the Gaza Strip which may take up about 16% of the embattled enclave’s territory, according to Haaretz.

The newspaper reports that the zone will be about 1 km wide with all buildings in that area being dismantled, according to satellite images.

Additionally, the news outlet said that Israel plans to split the enclave into two parts, the northern and the southern one. Toward this end, the Israelis are creating another special buffer zone, known as the Netzarim Corridor, to control civilian traffic. In that area, the width of the Gaza Strip will amount to merely 5.5 km when the buffer zone along the border is created.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.