After the Gaza war, Israel wants to create a buffer zone on the border with the Gaza Strip. “Israel will need a security envelope,” Israeli government security adviser Mark Regev said today. “There will no longer be a situation where the Hamas people are at the border, where they can cross over and kill our civilians.”
He did not give further details about the planned security zone. Regev said Israel has no interest in reoccupying or permanently governing the Gaza Strip. At the same time, he said that Israel must maintain control over the security of the coastal strip after the war.
Regev: Hamas not yet defeated
He reiterated the objective of ending Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip after 16 years and destroying the terrorist organization’s military capabilities, but acknowledged that Hamas is far from defeated. “They still fire rockets at Israel and control large parts of the Gaza Strip.” Israel still has “a lot of work to do.”
The last war in Gaza was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, committed by terrorists from the Gaza Strip in Israel, close to the border, on October 7th. More than 1,200 people were killed and around 240 hostages were taken to Gaza.