Israel informó a Turquía y a los países árabes de su intención de establecer una zona de amortiguamiento en la frontera con Gaza tras la guerra
Reuters
Egyptian and regional sources said that Israel has informed several Arab countries that it wants to allocate a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the Gaza border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals regarding the future of the Strip after the end of the war.
According to three regional sources, Israel linked its plans with its neighbors Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020.
They also said that Saudi Arabia, which has no relations with Israel and which stopped the normalization process mediated by the United States after the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, was informed. The sources did not say how the information reached Riyadh, which officially does not have direct communication channels with Israel. The sources said that Turkey was also told.
The initiative does not signal an imminent end to Israel's offensive - which resumed on Friday after a seven - day truce-but it shows that Israel is reaching out beyond Arab mediators, Egypt or Qatar, as it seeks to shape Gaza's post-war future.
No Arab country has shown any willingness to monitor or manage Gaza in the future, and most of them have strongly condemned the Israeli offensive that has claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people and the settlement of swathes of urban areas in Gaza.
"Israel wants this buffer zone between Gaza and Israel from North to South to prevent Hamas or other militants from infiltrating or attacking Israel,"said a senior regional security official, one of the three regional sources who requested anonymity.
The Egyptian, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Jordanian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
An Emirati official did not respond directly when asked if Abu Dhabi had been told about the buffer zone, but said: "the UAE will support any future post-war arrangements agreed by all concerned parties" to stabilize and establish a Palestinian state.
Asked about the buffer zone plans, Ofer Volk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters: "the plan is more detailed than that. It's based on a three-layer process for the day after Hamas."
In setting out the position of the Israeli government, he said that the three levels involve the destruction of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, and the de-radicalization of the Strip.
"The buffer zone may be part of the demilitarization process,"he said. He declined to provide details when asked if these plans had been raised with international partners, including Arab countries.
Arab countries have rejected Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas as impossible, saying it is more than an armed force that can be defeated.
Israel has suggested in the past that it is considering a buffer zone inside Gaza, but sources said it is now offering it to Arab countries as part of its future security plans for Gaza. Israeli forces withdrew from the Strip in 2005.
A US official, who declined to be identified, said that Israel is "dependent" on the idea of a buffer zone without saying to whom. But the official also reiterated Washington's opposition to any plan that reduces the size of the Palestinian Territories.
Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries have expressed concerns that Israel wants to pressure Palestinians to be deported from Gaza, repeating the land expropriation that Palestinians suffered when Israel was established in 1948. The Israeli government denies any such goal.
A senior Israeli security source said that the idea of a buffer zone is "being examined", adding: "it is not clear at the moment how deep the zone is and whether it could be 1 km, 2 km or hundreds of meters (inside Gaza)."
Any encroachment on Gaza, a strip about 40 km (25 miles) long and between about 5 km (3 miles) and 12 km (7.5 miles) wide, would cram its 2.3 million people into a smaller area.
So far, Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel, and Qatar, which has no official relations but keeps communication channels open, have been at the center of mediation talks with Israel that have focused on the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Two Egyptian security sources said that Israel raised the idea of disarming northern Gaza in mediation talks with Egypt and Qatar and the creation of a buffer zone in northern Gaza under international supervision.
Sources said that many Arab countries opposed this. They added that while Arab countries may not oppose a security barrier between the two sides, there was disagreement about its whereabouts.
