Israeli forces control more than 50 percent of the territory of Gaza, AP reported on April 5, squeezing the Palestinian population into ever smaller “wedges” of land.
The IDF in the last 24 hours has issued orders for people in Central Gaza to evacuate. Israel’s various operations indiciate intent to erase the Palestinian presence from Gaza altogether. According to many reports, Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight and 32 people yesterday. Notably, a local reporter and another person were killed when a media tent outside Nasser hospital was hit at about 2 am. Otherwise the victims are reported to include many women and children.
The largest contiguous area the army controls is around the Gaza border, where the military has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups.
Israel claims this is necessary to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, but the land Israel holds, which includes the Netzarim corridor that separates northern Gaza from the rest of the strip, could be used for wielding long-term control, human rights groups and Gaza experts say.
“They destroyed everything they could, they shot everything that looks functioning ... (the Palestinians) will have nothing to come back, they will not come back, never,” a soldier deployed with a tank squad guarding the demolition teams said. He and four other soldiers spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
A report documenting the accounts of soldiers who were in the buffer zone was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A handful of soldiers—including some who also spoke to AP—described watching the army turn the zone into a vast wasteland. “Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military laid the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area,” said the group.
