The border between Egypt and Gaza \u201cmust\u201d be closed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0said\u00a0Saturday \u2013 a move that would give Israel complete control over the Palestinian enclave\u2019s access to the world. <\/p>\n
During a press briefing, Netanyahu said that Israel would not consider the war finished until it closes the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14km strip of land that serves\u00a0as\u00a0a buffer zone on the border between Egypt and Gaza. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll destroy Hamas, we\u2019ll demilitarize Gaza, and military equipment and other deadly weapons will continue to enter this southern opening, so of course we need to close it,\u201d Netanyahu said. <\/p>\n
Egypt has previously warned Israel against military operations in the corridor, according to Egypt\u2019s Ahram Online. The state-run news outlet, citing an unnamed source,\u00a0reported\u00a0in October that any Israeli incursion into the Philadelphi Corridor would be seen as a violation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. <\/p>\n
Gaza borders Israel on two sides, and its Mediterranean coast and airspace are also under tight Israeli blockades. Its border crossing with Egypt, at the town of\u00a0Rafah, is the only crossing point not controlled by Israel, though it has still been subject to limited access and lengthy Egyptian bureaucratic and security processes. <\/p>\n
Israeli officials have not decided exactly how they would proceed with closing Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt, according to Netanyahu,\u00a0but doing so would signify a renewed Israeli control over the enclave not seen in years and a blow to Palestinians\u2019 limited sovereignty in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Israel held Gaza under occupation until 2005, when it withdrew troops and settlers. In 2006, Hamas won a\u00a0surprise landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections \u2013 the last polls to be held in Gaza. The Islamist militant group,\u00a0whose charter calls for Israel\u2019s \u201cobliteration,\u201d\u00a0has controlled the enclave since then. <\/p>\n
But Israel never relinquished control of most of the coastal enclave\u2019s perimeter.\u00a0For nearly 17 years, Gaza has been almost totally cut off from the rest of the world, with severe restrictions on its population\u2019s movement.\u00a0Smugglers have long turned to the enclave\u2019s underground tunnel network to bring in commercial goods, people and weapons \u2013 a key reason why Israel aims to cut it off from Egypt. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s longstanding blockade has been fiercely criticized by international bodies including the United Nations, which said in a 2022\u00a0report\u00a0that restrictions have had a \u201cprofound impact\u201d on living conditions in Gaza and have \u201cundermined Gaza\u2019s economy, resulting in high unemployment, food insecurity and aid dependency.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Israel argues that the blockade is vital to protect its citizens from Hamas \u2013 an argument that has gathered force since the militant group\u2019s devastating attacks in Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
Following the terror attacks, Netanyahu\u2019s government declared a \u201ccomplete siege\u201d of Gaza and shuttered all of its crossings, leaving Rafah the sole avenue for negotiated deliveries of supplies of basic humanitarian assistance like food and water, and for evacuations of foreign nationals. In recent weeks, some aid has also been allowed to enter Gaza through Israel\u2019s Kerem Shalom border crossing, following intense diplomatic pressure from the United States and other parties. <\/p>\n
But aid groups say it is still far from enough and warn of\u00a0a growing risk of famine\u00a0for Gaza\u2019s isolated population if Israeli restrictions on imports persist. <\/p>\n
In three months of siege, more than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave. Almost\u00a070%\u00a0of those killed have been women and children, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a December report. <\/p>\n\n
The border between Egypt and Gaza \u201cmust\u201d be closed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0said\u00a0Saturday \u2013 a move that would give Israel complete control over the Palestinian enclave\u2019s access to the world. During a press briefing, Netanyahu said that Israel would not consider the war finished until it closes the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14km strip of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}