Fighting in Gaza will continue for at least 7 months: Israeli official
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, says that he expects fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least.
He also told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan that the Israeli military was in control of 75 percent of the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt.
Eisenkot: Gaza military operations will continue for years
Israeli Army Radio has quoted war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot as saying that it will take “three to five years for a significant stabilisation” in the Gaza Strip, and then “many more” to form a new government there.
“Whoever says that we will disband a few battalions in Rafah and then return the abductees is sowing a false illusion – this is a much more complex event”, Eisenkot was quoted as saying.
Analysis shows Gaza is shrinking due to Israeli buffer zone
An analysis conducted by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, found that the area of the Gaza Strip has shrunk by nearly 32 percent due to a buffer zone that the Israeli army is creating around the perimeter of the territory.
The Israeli army expanded the areas of the buffer zone to be established on the country’s border with the Gaza Strip, while continuing to blow up and demolish residential neighbourhoods near the border, the effects of which were monitored until this month.
The results of the analysis and monitoring of the destroyed areas via satellite images show the erosion of the total area of the Gaza Strip by approximately 120sq km (about 46sq miles).
In January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voices the US’s opposition to any permanent change in the territorial composition of Gaza and the rejection of any permanent displacement of its population.
Despite this, extensive bulldozing operations by the Israeli army continue, and Israel has previously revealed that it needs more than 100 giant D9 bulldozers to expand and accelerate the process of establishing the buffer zone.
