Israel Grows Buffer Zones Along Its Borders As Part Of Post-oct.7 Military Doctrine

‘Redrawn map’

Israel’s shape-shifting isn’t new. Since its founding, borders person expanded and contracted arsenic it has fought galore wars pinch its neighbors, absorbing and past withdrawing from their territory.

While Katz and others tout nan information benefits of expanding beyond Israel’s borders, critics opportunity that these moves consequence antagonizing Israel’s neighbors, exhausting its troops and triggering a wider conflict. Some critics of nan existent Israeli attack pass that it will reenergize groups for illustration Hamas and Hezbollah, not trim their power. 

“The main consequence to Israel is that … you’re conscionable going to spot counterinsurgency from Hamas, you’re going to spot that from Hezbollah,” Mairav Zonszein, an Israel expert astatine nan International Crisis Group, told NBC News.

But this guidance of recreation has been clear since Oct. 7, aft which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he intended to toggle shape nan region.

“The decisions we’ve made successful nan warfare person already changed nan look of nan Middle East,” he wrote successful an X post successful February. “Our decisions and nan courageousness of our soldiers person redrawn nan map.”

On July 7, sitting alongside President Donald Trump successful nan Oval Office aft Israel and nan U.S. launched punishing strikes connected Iranian atomic and subject installations and targeted elder scientists and officials, Netanyahu underlined nan purpose of continuing to fundamentally alteration nan region.

“This is simply a historical victory,” he said. “This has already changed nan look of nan Middle East, but it's not over.”