Israeli plan for a buffer zone in Gaza

The funeral for an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza on Monday. – A coffin covered in an Israeli flag being carried into a tree-lined cemetery, followed by mourners holding umbrellas against the rain. – Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

Soldiers killed during construction of buffer zone

The Israeli military suffered its deadliest day of the Gaza ground invasion on Monday, announcing that 24 soldiers had been killed, about 20 of them in an explosion inside the territory near the Israeli border.

The blast occurred after Gazan militants fired toward a tank guarding an Israeli unit that had been setting explosives inside Palestinian buildings on the border in central Gaza with the intention of demolishing them, the Israeli military said. In the firefight, the explosives went off, killing many of the soldiers inside, the military said.

Israel wants to demolish many Palestinian buildings close to the border to create what it describes as a border-long “security zone” of up to roughly six-tenths of a mile to make attacks by Hamas less likely, according to officials. That would effectively reduce the size of Gaza, a process the U.S. opposes.

Criticism: To Palestinians, the practice is cruel and would keep Gazans from being able to return to their homes. Critics say the practice is part of a wider disregard for civilian housing and property. The majority of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged during the war, according to U.N. estimates, and more than 25.000 Gazans have been killed, according to Gazan officials.

 

In other news from the war:

More than half a million people in Gaza face “catastrophic hunger,” a U.N. aid agency said, and it called for a critical increase in aid as the “risk of famine grows.” A U.N. office said Israel’s treatment of thousands of Palestinian detainees, who were held in “horrific” conditions and in some cases freed wearing only diapers, might amount to torture. A Lebanese Australian journalist at Australia’s public broadcaster shared a Human Rights Watch post that was critical of Israel. A day later, she was forced to leave her role.