How a narrow strip of scrubland has become an obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza

How a narrow strip of scrubland has become an obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at a map of the Gaza Strip during a press conference in Jerusalem on Sept. 4, 2024. (POOL/AFP)
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Updated 05 September 2024
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How a narrow strip of scrubland has become an obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza

How a narrow strip of scrubland has become an obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza
  • The Philadelphi corridor is a strip that runs the 14-km length of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt
  • Israel says Hamas used a vast network of tunnels beneath the border to import weapons
  • Egypt says it destroyed tunnels on its side and set up a buffer zone that prevents smuggling

A narrow strip of scrubland and sand dunes on the Gaza side of the border with Egypt has emerged as a major obstacle in talks aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and freeing scores of hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel must maintain control over the so-called Philadelphi corridor to prevent Hamas from replenishing its arsenal through a network of smuggling tunnels in the area. He says that’s necessary to ensure the group can never again launch an attack into Israel like the one on Oct. 7 that ignited the war.
But many Israelis, including the defense minister, say Israel should relinquish the corridor, at least for a short period of time, in order to secure an agreement to bring back around 100 hostages still held in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
The debate reached a fever pitch this weekend after Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages that the military says Hamas killed as troops closed in. Critics say they could have been returned alive in a ceasefire deal and accuse Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks for his own political interests.
Hamas has demanded a full withdrawal from Gaza and says Netanyahu only raised the demand for the Philadelphi corridor in recent weeks to derail the talks.

Netanyahu blames Hamas for the lack of a deal and says the demand is not new.
Egypt, which has served as a key mediator, is also opposed to any Israeli presence along the Gaza side of its border and says it would threaten the decades-old peace treaty between the two countries, a cornerstone of regional stability.
What is the Philadelphi corridor and why does Israel want it?
The Philadelphi corridor is a strip — only 100 meters (yards) wide in some places— that runs the 14-kilometer (8.6-mile) length of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt. It includes the Rafah crossing, which was Gaza’s only outlet to the outside world not controlled by Israel until the army captured the entire corridor in May.
Israel says Hamas used a vast network of tunnels beneath the border to import arms, allowing it to build up the military machine it deployed on Oct. 7. The military says it has found and destroyed dozens of tunnels since seizing the corridor.
At a news conference on Monday, Netanyahu pointed to a map of the region depicting weapons flowing into Gaza from across the border, saying the corridor provided “oxygen” for Hamas.
Egypt released a statement Tuesday rejecting Netanyahu’s allegations, saying they misled the Israeli public and obstructed ceasefire efforts. Egypt says it destroyed hundreds of tunnels on its side of the border years ago and set up a military buffer zone of its own that prevents smuggling.
What do Netanyahu’s critics say about the corridor?
For weeks, Israeli media have quoted unnamed security officials lambasting Netanyahu, saying the corridor is not essential to Israel’s security and should not hold up a deal to return hostages. Some have suggested an international force could patrol the border, perhaps with remote Israeli sensors.
The dispute sparked a shouting match at a security Cabinet meeting last week, in which Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accused Netanyahu of favoring border arrangements over the lives of the hostages, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting. Gallant was the lone dissenting voice in a subsequent vote in favor of maintaining control over the Philadelphi corridor and has since called on the government to reverse it.




Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a press conference in Jerusalem on Sept. 4, 2024. (POOL/AFP)

Families of hostages have led months of mass protests calling on Netanyahu to make a deal with Hamas to return their loved ones. The biggest demonstrations yet erupted over the weekend after the killing of the six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the best-known captives.
Netanyahu’s supporters say that conceding the Philadelphi corridor now would reward Hamas for killing the captives. They maintain that only relentless military pressure can defeat Hamas, return the hostages and bring about a deal that ensures Israel’s long-term security.
What do Palestinians say about the corridor?
Any Israeli presence inside Gaza would be widely seen as a military occupation, likely prolonging the conflict.
It could also extend, perhaps indefinitely, the closure of the Rafah crossing, which has been a lifeline for Gaza since Egypt and Israel began imposing various degrees of a blockade on the territory after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
For 16 years, it was the only way for most Palestinians to exit or enter Gaza. During the first seven months of the war, it was also the only route available for medical evacuations and the main entry point for desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their own state. It withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but continued to control the territory’s airspace, coastline, and all of its border crossings except Rafah.
Hamas has adamantly rejected any Israeli presence in Gaza, including in the Philadelphi corridor and the Netzarim corridor, a buffer zone carved out by Israel separating northern from southern Gaza. Israel says it needs that corridor to search Palestinians returning to their homes in the north to keep militants from slipping in.
Israel denies its demands regarding the two corridors are new, referring to them as “clarifications” of an earlier proposal endorsed by President Joe Biden in a May 31 speech and by the UN Security Council.
Israel also accuses Hamas of making unacceptable demands since then, and says the militant group is hindering a deal, including by killing hostages who would be part of it.
What is the position of the mediators?
Biden’s speech and the Security Council resolution referred to a complete Israeli withdrawal. Egyptian officials and Hamas say the demands regarding the corridors were not included in subsequent versions of the US-backed proposal, including one that Hamas said it accepted in early July.
Egypt is deeply opposed to any Israeli military presence along the Gaza border and has refused to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing unless the Gaza side is returned to Palestinian control.
It has accused Israel of violating annexes to the landmark 1979 peace treaty pertaining to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza that regulate the deployment of forces along the border. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The United States, which is providing crucial military support to Israel while also serving as a mediator, has not taken a position on the corridors, at least publicly, while Hamas has accused it of trying to impose Israel’s demands on the militant group.
Biden said Monday that Netanyahu was not doing enough to bring about a ceasefire, without elaborating.
 


Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire

Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire
Updated 14 sec ago
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Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire

Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire
  • “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”

ISTANBUL: More than 90 passengers and crew were evacuated from a Russian plane Sunday after one of its engines caught fire while landing at an airport in southern Turkiye, the transport ministry said.
The incident involved a Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SU95) operated by Russia’s Azimuth Airlines.
They plane had just landed at Antalya airport on Turkiye’s Mediterranean coast when a fire broke out in one of its engines, a ministry statement said.
“A SU95 type and RA89085-registered aircraft of Azimuth Airlines traveling from Sochi airport in Russia to Antalya airport had an engine fire during landing,” it said.
“Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries.”
All further scheduled landings at the airport would be canceled until 3:00 am, it added, saying other planes waiting to depart would use the airport’s military runway for takeoff.
An airport official told Anadolou state news agency that the fire had affected its left engine but had been quickly extinguished.

 


War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Updated 59 min 20 sec ago
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War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
  • Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
  • Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday

BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.


Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   
Updated 24 November 2024
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Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   
  • The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.

IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.

ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.

 


Hezbollah says destroyed 6 Israeli tanks in Lebanon’s south

Israeli army tanks maneuver in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
Israeli army tanks maneuver in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
Updated 24 November 2024
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Hezbollah says destroyed 6 Israeli tanks in Lebanon’s south

Israeli army tanks maneuver in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
  • In the area of Bayada, a village on the Mediterranean coast less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, the NNA reported that “a convoy of 30 Israeli military vehicles” was retreating inland after Hezbollah had destroyed their tanks

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah said its fighters destroyed six Israeli army tanks in Lebanon’s southern border area on Sunday, most of them near a coastal village where the group and state media reported fierce battles.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said intense ground fighting was underway in several parts of south Lebanon, about two months since limited exchanges of fire escalated into a full-blown war.
In the area of Bayada, a village on the Mediterranean coast less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, the NNA reported that “a convoy of 30 Israeli military vehicles” was retreating inland after Hezbollah had destroyed their tanks.
A Hezbollah statement said fighters from the group “destroyed” five Israeli tanks on the eastern outskirts of Bayada, including one that had “attempted to advance to withdraw one of the destroyed tanks.”
In a separate statement, Hezbollah said it knocked out a sixth Merkava tank in the Deir Mimas area overlooking Israel’s far north, and where the Lebanese group claimed rocket fire at Israeli soldiers on Sunday.
George Nakad, mayor of Deir Mimas, was quoted by the NNA as saying that Israeli forces had “set up a checkpoint” on a road between his village and a neighboring one.
Further east, Hezbollah said its fighters launched four rocket salvos at Israeli troops east of Khiam, a border town that has seen intensifying battles in recent weeks.
Khiam has symbolic significance, as it had hosted a notorious prison run by the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy militia, during Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
The NNA reported “an accelerated Israeli ground operation in Khiam” after a “difficult” night of fighting.
Israeli tanks have been operating east of Khiam for more than three weeks, with the NNA reporting on Tuesday that the tanks had moved north of the town.
On Sunday it also reported clashes in other areas of the border strip including Bayada, and said that an Israeli strike had cut traffic between the town of Marjayoun and the major southern city of Nabatiyeh.
On Saturday, the NNA had said Israeli troops tried to penetrate the Bayada area, near Tyre city, in order to encircle the town of Naqura where UN peacekeepers are based.
On September 23, Israel launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah bastions in the south and east and in south Beirut, later sending ground troops across the border.
It followed nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.

 


UN envoy concerned over expansion of conflict

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen talks to reporters in the Syrian capital Damascus, on May 22, 2022. (AFP)
United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen talks to reporters in the Syrian capital Damascus, on May 22, 2022. (AFP)
Updated 24 November 2024
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UN envoy concerned over expansion of conflict

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen talks to reporters in the Syrian capital Damascus, on May 22, 2022. (AFP)
  • The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities

DAMSCUS: The UN special envoy for Syria said on Sunday that it was “extremely critical” to end the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza to avoid the country being pulled into a regional war.
“We need now to make sure that we have immediately a ceasefire in Gaza, that we have a ceasefire in Lebanon, and that we avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict,” said Geir Pedersen ahead of a meeting with the Syrian foreign minister in Damascus. “We agree that it is extremely critical that we de-escalate so that Syria is not further dragged into this,” he said.
Since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra earlier in the week killed 105 people, the vast majority of them pro-Iran fighters, in the deadliest such attack on radical groups to date.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.