Israel’s Earthen Barriers in the Gaza Strip

Construction of barriers: Israel is constructing massive earthen walls and raised berms across several parts of the Gaza Strip.

What Are Earthen Barriers?

• Basic structure: Earthen barriers or berms are raised embankments of compacted soil, sand or stone used for defence and territorial control.
• Military purpose: They restrict movement, protect military positions, obstruct vehicles and create physical separation between populations and security forces.
• Old defensive practice: Earthen berms and ramparts are among the oldest forms of defensive architecture used in warfare.

Why Is Israel Building Them?

• Security buffer: Israel seeks to create cleared and fortified buffer zones between military positions and Palestinian population centres.
• Movement control: The barriers enable Israeli forces to regulate civilian movement within Gaza.
• Territorial separation: They divide Gaza into isolated northern and southern enclaves.
• Prevention of return: The barriers may prevent displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes, neighbourhoods and agricultural lands.
• Control over infrastructure: They cut through roads, transport routes, farmland and formerly populated areas.

Earlier Use of Similar Barriers

• Gaza perimeter fence: Israel began constructing security barriers around Gaza following the 1994 Oslo Accords.
• West Bank barrier: Since 2002, Israel has developed a planned barrier of nearly 700 km separating parts of the West Bank from Jerusalem and Israel.
• Bar Lev Line: Israel constructed a 20–25-metre-high sand rampart along the Suez Canal between 1968 and 1973 to prevent Egyptian attacks.
• Moroccan Wall: Morocco built a nearly 2,700-km-long sand-and-stone berm in Western Sahara to separate its controlled territory from the Polisario Front.
• Other examples: Similar barriers combined with surveillance technologies are found along the Korean Demilitarised Zone and the Syrian–Turkish border.

Possible Impact

• Fragmentation of Gaza: The barriers may divide Gaza into disconnected geographical enclaves.
• Threat to Palestinian statehood: Territorial fragmentation can undermine the possibility of establishing a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
• Isolation of urban centres: Major transport routes may be blocked, separating cities such as Gaza City from agricultural areas in the south.
• Supply-chain disruption: Restrictions on roads and farmland could adversely affect food movement and domestic supply chains.
• Permanent displacement: Displaced Palestinians may be unable to return to neighbourhoods destroyed during Israeli military operations.
• Civilian hardship: The barriers could deepen restrictions on movement, livelihoods and access to essential services.

What Has Been the Reaction?

• Fourth Geneva Convention: Critics argue that Articles 47 and 53 prohibit an occupying power from destroying or confiscating property and making permanent structural alterations in occupied territory.
• Military-necessity exception: Such actions may be permissible only when an absolute military necessity requires temporary measures.
• United Nations’ concern: UN officials have repeatedly warned that permanent buffer zones could violate Gaza’s territorial integrity.
• UNSC Resolution 2720: Concerns have been raised that territorial fragmentation would be inconsistent with the territorial integrity of Gaza affirmed by the UN Security Council.
• Researchers’ assessment: Scholars studying Israeli security practices argue that Palestinians may view these barriers as instruments of permanent territorial displacement.

The central issue is whether these barriers constitute temporary security measures or an attempt to permanently reshape Gaza’s territory and demographic geography.