IDF takes management of Gaza’s total land border

Israel‘s military has seized control of a strategic buffer zone along Gaza‘s border with Egypt, in effect taking total command of the Palestinian enclave’s perimeter as it continues its assault on the southern city of Rafah. 

The IDF announced last night it had captured the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow demilitarised zone that runs the 8.6-mile length of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt and includes the Rafah crossing.

Israel says the corridor is peppered with at least 20 tunnels that have funnelled weapons and other goods for Hamas – despite a yearslong blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt – and now aims to locate and destroy all the shafts.

But taking the corridor could complicate Jerusalem’s relations with Cairo, which are already strained after an Egyptian soldier was shot dead on Monday in a brief skirmish with IDF troops.

Egyptian media, quoting security sources, also dismissed Israel’s claim that the Philadelphi Corridor was filled with Hamas tunnels. 

It comes as the IDF deepened its incursion into Rafah, sending thousands more troops to join existing operations and seizing control of Tel al-Sultan – the neighbourhood where 45 Palestinians perished in a fire Sunday night following an Israeli bombing raid. 

Speaking last night, Israel’s military chief spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said: ‘The Philadelphi Corridor served as the oxygen line of Hamas through which Hamas carried out weapons smuggling into Gaza on a regular basis.’

And another Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said troops had already found some 20 tunnels, including some previously unknown to Israel, were found, as well as 82 access points to the tunnels. 

Hamas had free rein of the border with Egypt since its 2007 takeover of Gaza, and smuggling tunnels were dug under the partition to get around the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. 

Hamas brought in weapons and supplies, and Gaza residents smuggled in commercial goods, from livestock to construction materials.

But that changed over the past decade as Egypt battled Islamic militants in Sinai.

The Egyptian military cracked down on the tunnels and destroyed hundreds of them – though Hamas is thought to have maintained several access points in and out of Gaza. 

Officials in the US – Israel’s top ally and provider of weapons – said that the seizure of the Philadelphi Corridor would be consistent with the ‘limited’ ground operation Israeli officials briefed President Joe Biden’s team on for the city of Rafah.

‘When they briefed us on their plans for Rafah it did include moving along that corridor and out of the city proper to put pressure on Hamas in the city,’ national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday.

But Egypt has sounded the alarm over the Israeli takeover of the corridor, saying that any increase in troops in the strategic border area would violate the countries’ 1979 peace accord. 

Under the peace accord, each side is allowed to deploy only a small number of troops or border guards in the zone, though those numbers can be modified by mutual agreement. 

Egypt has repeatedly expressed concerns that the Israeli offensive could push Palestinians across the border – a scenario Egypt says is unacceptable – and previously complained about Israel taking over the Rafah border crossing – the only crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

Meanwhile, the deadly violence in Rafah continues. 

The IDF said that a fifth brigade – up to several thousand soldiers – joined troops operating in the city where tanks were spotted for the first time earlier this week. 

An Israeli military official also said yesterday that IDF troops had taken ‘tactical control’ of Tel al-Sultan, a neighbourhood on Rafah’s northwest edge.

That district was devastated by an Israeli bombing raid on Sunday night, with 45 Palestinians said to have burned to death in tents. Israel said it was investigating and the blaze may have been caused by a secondary explosion.

The Gaza Health Ministry said an apparent Israeli strike also killed two ambulance crew members on their way to evacuate the casualties in Tel al-Sultan.

Subsequently, Israeli shelling of al-Mawasi, a district west of Rafah, is believed to have killed 21 people and injured dozens more in another area designated as a safe zone for displaced Palestinians.  

The fighting in Rafah has displaced 1 million people, the United Nations says, most of whom were already displaced from other parts of Gaza.

In a grim prognosis yesterday, a top Israeli official said the war was likely to last through the end of the year.

Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Kan public radio he was ‘expecting another seven months of fighting’ to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group.

The army has said from the start the ‘war will be long,’ he said. ‘They have designated 2024 as a year of war.’

Hanegbi’s remarks raise questions about the future of Gaza and what role Israel will play in it. 

The US has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decide on a postwar vision for the Palestinian territory, while Netanyahu’s defence minister and a top governing partner have warned he must take steps to ensure that Israel isn’t bogged down in Gaza indefinitely.

The war has already devastated Gaza’s urban landscape, displaced most of its population and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe and widespread hunger. 

It has opened Israel up to international legal scrutiny, with world courts faulting it over its wartime conduct, sparked disagreements with the White House, and on Tuesday prompted Ireland, Norway and Spain to formally recognise a Palestinian state.

Last week, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive as part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, a charge Israel denies. 

Israel meanwhile says it must dismantle Hamas’ last remaining battalions in Rafah and will seek indefinite security control over the Gaza Strip, even after the war ends. 

But it has yet to achieve its main goals of rooting out Hamas and returning scores of hostages captured in Hamas’ October 7 attack that triggered the war.

Elsewhere in Gaza, a floating pier built by the US to facilitate the flow of aid into the territory was damaged in bad weather – another setback to efforts to bring food to starving Palestinians with all of the land crossings into the territory now controlled by Israel. 

The US and other allies have warned against a full-fledged offensive in Rafah, with the Biden administration saying this would cross a ‘red line’ and refusing to provide offensive arms for such an undertaking. 

But so far, it hasn’t tried to stop Israel’s advances.

The war began when militants burst into southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. 

More than 100 were released during a November cease-fire in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel’s offensive in response to the attack has killed at least 36,096 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. 

Israel says it has killed 15,000 militants.