Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas in March, they have drastically expanded their military presence in the Gaza Strip.
Above all, Israel has expanded its so-called "buffer zone", which encroaches on Palestinian territory along Gaza's borders. In recent weeks, this zone has been doubled, reports news agency AP. Together with the land corridor Netzarim, which separates southern and northern Gaza, Israel now controls at least 50 percent of Gaza, according to Yaakov Garb, a professor at Ben Gurion University in Israel who has studied land issues in the region for decades, according to AP.
The overall picture is confirmed by an anonymous source within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, who tells the newspaper Haaretz that Israeli forces now control around 40 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Killing wives and children
The systematic expansion of Israel's buffer zone has been ongoing since the outbreak of war a year and a half ago, according to five anonymous Israeli soldiers who spoke to AP. The soldiers are ordered to destroy agricultural land, crops, trees, irrigation pipes, and buildings, they say.
The Palestinians will not have anything to come back to, says one of them.
I realized that we're not just killing them (Hamas men). We're killing them, we're killing their wives, their children, their cats and their dogs – and we're destroying their homes, says another.
The Israeli peace group Breaking the Silence, founded by Israeli veterans, describes the same thing in a report released on Monday. Israel's military has ordered its forces to turn the buffer zone into a "death zone of enormous proportions" where nothing can grow and no one can live. Anyone who enters – including women and children – is shot dead, testify several soldiers in the report.
"Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military is laying the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area," says Breaking the Silence.
Ethnic cleansing
Last week, Netanyahu announced that Israel will create another land corridor in the Gaza Strip. The so-called Morag corridor is planned to cut off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza.
Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly warned that Israel's expanded offensive in Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing. It is clear that the Palestinians who are driven out will never be allowed to return, notes HRW's Nadia Hardman to AP.
Israel has called the accusations baseless. Civilians are being evacuated from active combat zones in Gaza to protect them, according to Israel's statement.
