buffer

It also says that the “organised, violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, who are members of another ethnic group, is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors”, and that such actions “amount to ethnic cleansing”.

The Israeli military has denied that it is seeking to create permanent buffer zones and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar recently said that displaced people from northern Gaza would be allowed to return home at the end of the war.

HRW also alleges that Israel’s military has “intentionally demolished or severely damaged civilian infrastructure, including controlled demolitions of homes, with the apparent aim of creating an extended ‘buffer zone’ along Gaza’s perimeter with Israel and a corridor which will bifurcate Gaza”.

Farhat’s eco-lodge, with its yurt accommodation surrounded by orchards, looks out onto rows of fresh trenches along the buffer zone.

The United Nations says Israeli construction along a demilitarised buffer zone with Syria has led to “severe violations” of a 50-year-old ceasefire agreement, which risk increasing tensions along their shared frontier in the occupied Golan Heights.