From Razing Rubble to Hlowing Homes: Israeli Defense Army soldiers participate in how to expand them in the Gaza Buffer Zone in a new report

New report from Break down (BTS), an Israeli non -governmental organization, has collected a testimony from the soldiers who detailed how they detailed the plot of land during the war in their mission to expand the buffer zone between Gaza and Israel deeper into the tape.

BTS, which was founded by the Israeli Defense Forces veterans, issued a report entitled “An title” entitled ” OceanIt contains information from interviews with dozens of Israeli Defense Army soldiers who served in Gaza and participated in the expansion of the buffer zone, which the report refers to the name of the ocean. CBC News managed to speak to one of these soldiers who provided details about the activities of the Israeli Defense Army in the north to the south along the border.

Since its establishment in 2004, BTS has published reports based on more than 1,400 accounts of the Israeli Defense Army soldiers based on their experiences during their service in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem since September 2000, in its effort to “expose the public to the reality of daily life in the occupied territories” “Bringing the occupation”.

In a statement of CBC news, BTS said that the construction of the ocean by “confiscating the land” would lead to great obstacles to reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and “undermining its long -term sustainability.” The organization says that the data of Israeli officials, including that the region “will remain in the hands of Israel” and that the Palestinians will not be allowed to return, to some extent BTS calls “ethnic cleansing.”

BTS also calls on the Israeli government to return to the negotiating table and search for a diplomatic solution to return the hostages and bring peace to the region.

“The future of lack of security”

The Israeli forces have maintained an ocean that extends north to the south along the border between Gaza and Israel since the early first decade of the twentieth century. In 2015, the United Nations Humanitarian Agency noted that the buffer zone It spanned 300 meters in the tape. The Palestinians are generally not allowed to distance the fence that separates the two regions.

Since October 7, 2023-When the militants, led by Hamas, stormed the borders of the Gaza of Israel, killed more than a thousand people and kidnapped 250, according to Israeli figures-the ocean was expanded to at least one kilometer in Gaza, according to the Israeli Defense Army soldiers who told BTS about their involvement in the mission. Although the report does not mention the soldiers, it gives their ranks, regions and general periods that they served.

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An Israeli Defense Army soldier told the report, an officer who served in northern Gaza between January and February 2024, BTS that the buffer zone will reach 1.5 km to Gaza, and civilians will be banned and that everything will be moved. When they were asked how the area would look after they passed, they answered: “Hiroshima. This is what I say, Hiroshima.”

“This is a policy by the current Israeli government, which leads us to a future without security,” Joel Carmel, BTS director, told CBC News in a video call.

Carmel says that the continuous batch of Israel to extend the ocean to Gaza during the war means that the expanded area where the Palestinians are not allowed to become a key player in Gaza after the war, and that Israel chooses a future for Gaza where “no one can return” in this field.

recently Medium ReportsSome people consider an Israeli humanitarian organization ArmyI said that when Israel is completed in the buffer zone, it will include up to 17 percent of the Gaza Strip.

Usha says 65 percent of the pocket It is now among the “non -transition” areas, under the orders of active displacement or both. Israel has not fully explained its long -term targets to the areas it has now, although Gaza residents say they believe that the goal is to permanently dismantle land spaces, including some of the last agricultural structure in Gaza and water.

Carmel refers to a statement By Israeli Foreign Minister Elie Cohen in October 2023, he said that “Gaza’s lands will shrink” after the war ended.

CBC News contacted the Israeli Defense Army and Israeli government officials to comment, but she did not hear before publishing.

In their testimonies on BTS, the Israeli Defense Army soldiers who participated in the expansion of the ocean, in detail the destruction they left behind and how the presence of the ocean affects Palestinian and Israeli societies.

He left Gaza as a “Tel Al -Aqdi”

One of the soldiers who spoke to BTS and CBC News was a first -class sergeant in northern Gaza in November 2023. They said their unit was charged with it The bombing of more than 100 buildings in the ocean during their tour in Gaza. Although CBC confirmed the identity of the sergeant, they spoke on the condition that their identity remains secret for fear of their security and ways of living.

According to the Sergeant, the Israeli Defense Army soldiers were informed of a briefing that the areas asked to destroy them were close enough to the Israeli settlements and cities that were a security threat and had to be destroyed. Sergeant CBC told that this is the first time that the ocean has been mentioned during its mission.

They started their tour in northern Gaza, a region that was often the ruins, where they were assigned to abandoned homes and buildings. Soon they said that their mission expanded to the bombing of homes in southern Gaza, where they noticed that there were still signs of life. The sergeant said at this stage, questions started about the purpose of the task of growing in their minds.

“The houses have not been destroyed as in the north,” sergeant told CBC News on Zoom. “You see the signs of people’s lives there, and their things.”

The sergeant indicated that the reserve training they received did not cover how to detonate homes. Instead, they said, they were taught how to detonate the tunnel entrances and prepare mines on bridges and in the fields.

“The houses … not really something we trained for,” said sergeant. “Even the leaders were somewhat learned as we were going.”

The sergeant said that when they left Gaza in December 2023, it was “Tel Al -Aqid.”

“Everything is destroyed”

Professor Uday bin Noun from the Department of Geography Information Systems at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the destruction of Gaza and the expansion of the ocean since the beginning of the war.

He says that before October 7, 2023, there were about 180,000 buildings in Gaza, based on United Nations estimates. He says 120,000 of these buildings were destroyed before the ceasefire was broken in March. Data that separates the destruction since then has not yet been available.

He says that the agricultural lands inside the ocean contain about 3000 buildings, and that they were “completely demolished.”

“You must understand that not only the building, it is the roads, electricity, water structure, wastewater … everything is destroyed,” he told CBC News during a video call, as he showed the satellite images that he used to track.

Using his computer, Ben Nun was replaced between two pictures of the satellite that he created using one Google-maps showing the ocean condition before October 7, and the other yet. The map is displayed by green spots of land and buildings. On the map from a dimension, the color of the gray war appears. Tank paths and destroyed buildings are all seen.

He says that, based on this level of destruction, it will take generations in favor of Ghazan to rebuild what is lost.

Bin Nun said: “Even if people are allowed to return to the house, there is no house.”