Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Wednesday morning that the army’s buffer zone — an area between two states in conflict, which is meant to be a neutral or demilitarized zone, but in the case of Gaza is occupied by the Israeli military — will soon cover roughly 29 square miles of Gaza, or roughly one-fifth of the entire Strip. It will include Rafah. 

Israel’s military has in recent weeks called for the evacuation of Palestinians from parts of southern Gaza, including Rafah. 

Evacuation maps issued by the Israeli military show clearly the newly expanded occupied zone in the south.  

On April 1, Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, posted on X, urging Palestinians in Rafah and in the Al-Nasr and Al-Shawka neighborhoods — both located east of Rafah — to evacuate the area and relocate to a military-designated humanitarian zone along the coast, near Khan Younis and the al-Mawasi area. In January, BBC reported that this humanitarian area had been struck by the Israeli military 97 times since May.