On Saturday, Reuters quoted a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that Israel will seek to establish a “security envelope” that includes special areas and arrangements that prevent Hamas from establishing itself on its borders after the end of the war in Gaza.

The agency reported on Friday that Israel informed several Arab countries that it wants to establish a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the Gaza border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the coastal strip after the end of the war.

Asked whether Israel was already seeking to create such a buffer zone, Chancellor Mark Regev told reporters: “Israel will have to have a security envelope. We can never again allow terrorists to cross the border and slaughter our people the way they did on October 7.” 

Israel had indicated in the past that it was considering establishing a buffer zone inside Gaza, but the sources who spoke to Reuters said that it was now presenting it to Arab countries as part of its future security plans for Gaza.

According to the agency, Regev said: “If you ask me about the buffer zone, let me be clear; you will not have a situation in the future where you can have Hamas terrorists on the border, right on the border, positioned just to cross and kill our people again.”

“This does not mean that Israel will take land from Gaza,” Regev said. “On the contrary, this means creating security zones where there is a special situation on the ground that limits the ability of people to enter Israel to kill our people. This is common sense.”

According to three regional sources, Israel shared its plans with its neighbors Egypt and Jordan, along with the United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020.

According to the agency: “They also said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have relations with Israel and which stopped the normalization process with American mediation after the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, had been informed of this.”

Israel launched its indiscriminate war on the besieged Gaza Strip, after Hamas fighters attacked the Gaza envelope area, and were able to deliver a strong blow to the Gaza Division of the Israeli army, whose combat situation quickly deteriorated, enabling the Palestinian fighters to enter a depth of more than 20 miles, according to most intelligence reports. And the media, on November 7.

Israel, which pledged to eliminate Hamas once and for all, responded with a bombing campaign and ground attack that destroyed large areas of Gaza and killed more than 15,000 people, the overwhelming majority of whom were women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.