Will Egypt's buffer zone worsen Israel-Hamas friction?
Egypt's plan to clear a buffer zone on its Gaza-Sinai border will oblige Hamas to depend on the crossing points to Israel, a reality that might lead to another round of conflict.
The establishment of a buffer zone that would separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt was the dream the political, security and military echelons in Israel toyed with prior to and in the course of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. It was already clear then that the “iron wall” running along the Philadelphi Route — as the border zone was dubbed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — was no longer effective. The border route was time and again breached by the so-called “rats of Gaza,” as the tunnel diggers were labeled.
At the time, Israel was considering the establishment of a buffer zone. However, the idea has not materialized, mainly because then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to cooperate. The IDF had even prepared a contingency plan for the compensation of 300 Palestinian families for the loss of their homes — in respect of the need “to flatten the ground” and “to expand the military freedom of operation,” as they used to laconically explain in the IDF about the need for a zone free of houses along the border with Egypt.
In May 2004, I happened to witness an Israeli attempt to establish such a buffer zone. Israel tried to clear out the buffer zone during Operation Rainbow, which was launched following the death of 13 IDF soldiers in two incidents, which came to be known as “the armored personnel carrier disaster." Subsequently, the IDF decided to expand the Philadelphi Route. The bulldozers that destroyed the homes of Palestinians adjacent to the border looked like ravenous giant monsters. They were doggedly biting into wall after wall, mostly bullet-ridden walls bearing the scars of the unremitting war waged on the tripartite border between Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
It was an awful spectacle to witness. Men, women and children were fleeing their homes just minutes before the bulldozers smashed them; a barefoot boy was dashing out with a parrot cage in his hands; an elderly man wearing a torn T-shirt, enveloped in white dust, was covering up his face, staggering for safety; women were running away with a baby in one hand, their belongings held in small bags in the other one, screaming in despair and crying bitterly.
