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‘Gaza Buffer Zone Is No Substitute for Preventing Buildup of Terror Armies’
An armored personnel carrier (APC) maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, March 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
JNS.org – As reports continue to emerge about efforts by the Israel Defense Forces to set up a kilometer-wide buffer zone in Gaza to protect southern communities, a leading Israeli military strategist has told JNS that the broader goal of preventing the re-emergence of a terror army in the Strip should be a far more important, long-term Israeli objective.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal, former commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking, an IDF military studies department, who is today a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, noted the dominant thinking within military circles today about the need to establish such a zone, complete with multiple barriers.
He added, however, that this is merely the latest in a series of Israeli ventures to set up defensive structures, most of which were not successful.
“Why do we think that this time the obstacle will work? Each one of these past obstacles was state of the art in its time,” said Ortal.
“I am not against barriers, but the real question in my eyes is not whether a kilometer of a buffer zone will provide sufficient space to generate a warning before attacks occur,” he added.
Ortal said that for example, over time it will become increasingly difficult for Israel to enforce a “kill zone” within the buffer area, as terrorists will continuously test Israel’s responses by approaching the border, mingled among civilians or under the guise of civilian activities.
Instead, he argued, Israeli long-term strategic efforts in Gaza should be focused on the primary goal of preventing the re-emergence of a terror army anywhere in the Strip, which would mean that a buffer zone would not even be necessarily required to protect the south.
In a paper to be published soon by BESA, Ortal writes that developing a sustainable defense strategy should be based on competitive thinking, meaning not only providing solutions to enemy threats, but enabling Israel to proceed with military efforts over a long term, and to “deal with the fact that the enemy responds.”
Automatic responses to failures, which occurred both after the 1973 Yom Kippur War (such as enlarging the military to an unsustainable size), and currently, by creating new and improved border obstacles and by (once again) enlarging the IDF, could turn out to be little more than “technical lessons,” Ortal cautioned.
A deeper strategic mistake, he argues, has been the repeated pattern of allowing terror armies in Lebanon and Gaza to gradually build up large arsenals of ballistic projectiles and anti-tank missiles, and accepting a reality in which Israeli decision makers became deterred by the paralysis these arsenals could cause to the Israeli home front. Ultimately, this pattern that generated a vicious cycle of further enemy force build-up and Israeli passivity, Ortal argued.
As such, Ortal said, continuous offensive raids into Gaza by the IDF, combined with forward offensive systems that automatically strike anti-tank missile cells and rocket launchers immediately after these attack Israel, would go a long way towards a sustainable approach.
To enable this, he said, Israel should consider setting up on the border with Gaza a forward detection and strike system that automatically locates the source of anti-tank and other rocket fire, and returns fire within seconds.
This, he said, would pose an intolerable risk to enemy missile cells, a fact that could be highly relevant in the coming months due to the possibility that many anti-tank missiles and launchers might still be accessible to terrorists in Gaza.
Setting up such a forward automatic-strike layer would be far more effective than a buffer zone, Ortal argued, since even basic anti-tank missiles with a five-kilometer range could threaten southern communities from deeper in Gaza, behind the buffer zone.
“On the defense perspective we failed twice,” Ortal wrote in a previous paper that examined fundamental errors leading up to Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion.
“First, we allowed the Hamas and Hezbollah terror entities to build full-size military systems on our doorstep, in populated terrain that deprives us of even minimal early warning. Secondly, facing that situation, we did not fully deploy for defense. Rather, we kept our deployment on a ‘routine security’ protocol, the IDF’s version of a system of border security.”
During periods of calm, he said, Israel refrained from any significant preventive activity and allowed the enemy to entrench itself right next to Israel’s borders.
The result: “We lost the early warning buffer and did not reevaluate our defensive deployment.”
In addition to ongoing cross-border raids by the IDF in Gaza to prevent terrorists from regrouping, ensuring proper operational readiness on the part of IDF border units and the setting up of a militia-based, well-armed civilian response teams in southern communities, Ortal outlined a solution he has been advocating for several years.
This approach involves the building of mobile intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (unlike the fixed IDF border sensors taken out by Hamas on Oct. 7) and an automatic return-fire system, operating constantly on the border, together with units that can independently activate aircraft, unmanned aerial systems and other capabilities.
Rapidly locating and automatically striking sources of enemy fire should be a key aspect of this future array, he said. “The IDF once had excellent counter-battery fire [the ability to hit the enemy’s firepower sources] capabilities, but they are now outdated. A much faster and more precise capability must be developed that can destroy launchers before they are withdrawn behind cover,” he said.
The post ‘Gaza Buffer Zone Is No Substitute for Preventing Buildup of Terror Armies’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.