JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military said Wednesday it had seized a strategic corridor along the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt to cut off smuggling tunnels as part of efforts to destroy the militant Hamas group in a war now in its eighth month.
The occupation of the Philadelphia Corridor Complicating Israeli-Egyptian relationshas complained about Israeli advances towards the border, which Israel says is riddled with tunnels funneling weapons and other supplies to Hamas despite a years-long Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
Israel also Rafah city in southern GazaDozens of Palestinians have been killed in an escalation of violence in recent days in the city, where hundreds of thousands have fled to escape fighting. The army said the 5th Brigade, which has several thousand troops, joined forces operating in the city on Tuesday.
Egypt says the military buildup in the strategic border area violates a 1979 peace agreement between the two countries. It has already expressed unhappiness over Israel’s occupation of the Rafah border crossing, the only crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
“The Philadelphia Corridor served as an oxygen conduit for Hamas, which regularly smuggled weapons through it into the Gaza Strip,” Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said.
An Israeli military official said Israel had notified Egypt of the occupation. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with army regulations, said about 20 tunnels and 82 entrances to the tunnels had been found, including some that Israel had not previously known about. It was unclear whether the tunnels were currently in use.
The corridor is part of a larger demilitarized zone along the entire Israeli-Egyptian border. The peace agreement allows each side to station only small numbers of troops or border guards in the zone, but the numbers can be changed by mutual agreement. At the time of the agreement, Israeli forces controlled the Gaza Strip, but they withdrew their troops and settlers in 2005.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Kahera News television station said there had been “no contact with the Israeli side” over the claims of the discovery of tunnels on the border. Egypt has repeatedly expressed concern that Israeli attacks could lead Palestinians to cross the border, and it insists such a scenario is unacceptable.
The narrow corridor, about 100 meters wide, stretches for 14 kilometers along the border on the Gaza side. The border with Egypt, including the Rafah checkpoint To Egypt.
Hamas has had free control over the border since taking control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Smuggling tunnel To circumvent the Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took control, tunnels were dug under the Gaza-Egypt border, some wide enough for vehicles to pass through, allowing Hamas to bring in weapons and supplies while Gazans smuggled in commercial goods, from livestock to building materials.
But that has changed in the past decade as Egypt has fought Islamist militants in the Sinai Peninsula, and the Egyptian army has cracked down on the tunnels, destroying hundreds of them.
An Israeli military official said Israel had also “tactically seized” the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood on the northwestern edge of Rafah, but he said the incursion into the city remained an “operation limited in scope and scale.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the seizure of the Philadelphia corridor would be consistent with what Israeli officials have described to President Joe Biden’s team as a “limited” ground operation in the city of Rafah.
“When they explained their plans for Rafah, that included moving along that corridor and out of the city in order to put pressure on Hamas in the city,” Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the deadly violence continued: Gaza’s Health Ministry said two paramedics were killed in a suspected Israeli attack while evacuating wounded people in Tel al-Sultan.
Early Wednesday, a senior Israeli official said the war was likely to continue until the end of the year, a bleak prediction for a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead, deepened Israel’s global isolation and brought the region to the brink of crisis. Larger scale fires.
Israel’s national security adviser, Tsahi Hanegbi, told Kan public radio that “we expect seven more months of fighting” to destroy the military and governing capacity of Hamas and smaller Islamic Jihad militias.
He said the military had said from the start that “the war will be protracted” and that “they have set 2024 as the year of war.”
Hanegbi’s comments raise questions about Gaza’s future. What role will Israel play?The United States, Israel’s biggest ally, has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to determine a post-war vision for the Palestinian territories. Netanyahu’s Defense Minister And top Ruling party partners warn He must take steps to ensure that Israel is not trapped in Gaza indefinitely.
The war has already destroyed Gaza’s urban landscape, displaced much of its population, and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and widespread famine. Israel is facing international legal scrutiny and World courts condemn wartime actionscaused a disagreement with the White House and on Tuesday Three European countries formally recognise Palestinian state.
Israel has said the last Hamas battalion in Rafah must be disbanded and will seek indefinite security control of the Gaza Strip after the war ends, but its main goal of dismantling Hamas and returning the many hostages it has held remains unfulfilled. The Hamas attack on October 7th that sparked the war.
Outside Rafah, Israeli forces are still battling militants in parts of the Gaza Strip that they claim to have seized months ago, a sign of a smaller insurgency that could keep Israeli troops there.
The United Nations says fighting in Rafah has displaced one million people, most of whom had already fled other parts of Gaza.
Residents said fighting was continuing in the center and suburbs of Tel al-Sultan, where an Israeli military attack last weekend set a fire at a displaced persons camp, killing dozens. Israel is investigating and said the blaze may have been the result of a secondary explosion.
The floating dock built by the US to deliver large amounts of aid to the region Damaged by bad weatherIt’s another setback for efforts to get food to hungry Palestinians. Gaza’s land crossings are now fully controlled by Israel.
The United States and other allies have warned against a full-scale attack on Rafah, with the Biden administration saying it would cross a “red line.” Refusal to provide assault weapons In response to such efforts, Russia has so far not tried to thwart Israel’s aggression.
Last week, the International Court of Justice Israel to call off attack on Rafah As part of South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel Genocide against Palestinians in GazaIsrael denies this.
The war began when militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages. A ceasefire in November saw the release of more than 100 people in exchange for Palestinians held captive by Israel.
At least 36,096 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, it said. Gaza Ministry of HealthIt makes no distinction between combatants and civilians. Israel claims to have killed 15,000 combatants.
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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Barah in the Gaza Strip, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed.
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