Israel says a buffer zone would protect its people; critics say the policy could be a war crime.

Israel was trying to demolish part of a Palestinian neighborhood as it pursued a plan to create a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel when around 20 Israeli soldiers were killed Monday in an explosion, according to three Israeli officials and an Israeli officer involved in the demolitions.

The explosion on Monday occurred after Gazan militants fired toward a tank guarding an Israeli unit that had been setting explosives inside Palestinian buildings on the border in central Gaza with the intention of demolishing them, according to a news briefing given by the Israeli military on Tuesday. In the firefight, the explosives went off, killing many of the soldiers inside, the military said.

Israel wants to demolish many of the Palestinian buildings close to the border in order to create what they describe as a “security zone,” according to the three officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

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Edit: I changed the headline to match the main headline of the NYT live feed because it better describes the story. The original headline is now in italics at the top.