Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has vowed to maintain an Israeli military presence in a narrow strip of Gaza along the border with Egypt, one of the main sticking points in the talks over a cease-fire deal in the war. Mr. Netanyahu has called the area, known in Israel as the Philadelphi Corridor, a “lifeline” for Hamas’s smuggling operations.
Israeli security officials say that for years Hamas used the tunnels — some wide enough for trucks to drive along — to bring in weapons and the components to build rockets as well as other military supplies. They said that, in addition, the tunnels were used to funnel personnel into Gaza and also as a conduit to take out wounded Hamas fighters. Egypt has denied Israel’s claims on the matter, arguing that it policed the border effectively.
Control of the corridor has emerged as a primary disagreement in the cease-fire talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. Israel insists that its troops need to be present there, and Hamas has said it will not accept any deal that does not require a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Egypt is also opposed to an Israeli presence at the corridor.
Mr. Netanyahu this week appeared to suggest that it was essential for Israel to retain its presence there. “If we leave, there will be enormous diplomatic pressure upon us from the whole world not to return,” he said at a news conference on Monday.
Here’s a look at the importance of the border area:
What is the corridor?
It is land around 100 yards wide that runs roughly eight miles from Israel’s border to the Mediterranean. The border, which divided the city of Rafah, was set up under the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. To the northeast is Gaza, while Egypt lies to the southwest.
Egyptian border guards have been policing the land under an agreement with Israel made in 2005, when Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza. The Israelis used the code name Philadelphi for the area, while Egyptian officials call it Salah Al Din.
Why does the corridor matter to Israel?
Senior Israeli officials had set control of the strip as a military objective during the war in Gaza that began in October 2023. Israel invaded southern Gaza in May and soon afterward said its troops were positioned along the entirety of the corridor.
“This is the way they can get in and out without asking the Israelis,” said Ahron Bregman, a political scientist and expert in Middle East security issues at King’s College in London, and a former Israeli military officer. If the tunnels remain open, he said in an interview this spring, it will be easier for Hamas to rebuild its military capacity after the war.
In July, Israel appeared to toughen its stance on control of the strip. Its negotiators said that Israel wanted its troops to remain deployed there during the first phase of a cease-fire deal.
Israeli officials say that once Hamas came to power in 2007, the crossing became a main channel for smuggling, which peaked as Egyptian security broke down during the brief presidency of Mohamed Morsi, who came to power in 2012. When Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a military coup against Mr. Morsi the following year, he forged a security partnership with Israel over their shared interest in stamping out an insurgency in northern Sinai, the Egyptian region bordering Gaza and Israel.
What does Egypt say about the corridor?
Seeing Hamas as a security threat, Egypt has spent years cracking down on smuggling into Gaza, destroying and flooding tunnels, and constructing walls. But its position on the corridor has been clear: It has consistently said that the longstanding “security agreements and protocols” it and Israel have signed to govern the area commit Israel to keeping troops away from it.
For decades before the war, Egypt stationed guards along its side of the border. It reinforced those forces after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led assault on Israel that set off the current fighting.
Egypt has warned Israel to avoid doing anything that might force Gazans to cross the border or threaten a landmark peace agreement signed by the two countries in 1979. While Egypt has opened its borders to refugees in other regional conflicts, Mr. el-Sisi’s government fears that if Palestinian civilians crossed the border to escape the war, they could destabilize the country and become a drag on its economy.
The government also sees Hamas as an adversary, and does not want to give it a foothold in Egypt. Hamas began as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that was closely linked to the government that Mr. el-Sisi overthrew in 2013. His government has suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood since taking power.
Why does the corridor matter to Palestinians?
Egypt is the only country other than Israel that borders Gaza, so Israel’s control of the corridor is likely to be viewed by Palestinians as a sign of increasing isolation. Israel effectively closed the borders into Gaza at the start of the conflict in October, but for 16 years before that Israel and Egypt subjected the enclave to a blockade that restricted imports to the region and prevented most people from leaving.
The cross-border tunnels used by Hamas have also been a conduit for Egyptian and Palestinian merchants to bring food and other goods into Gaza. Israeli control of the strip will likely halt that underground trade.
Hamas has said it opposes any Israeli presence in the border strip and instead wants a complete Israeli withdrawal from the whole of Gaza.
How is the corridor affecting Israel-Hamas peace talks?
Mr. Netanyahu in public has adopted an uncompromising stance on the corridor, insisting Israeli forces will stay there to prevent Hamas smuggling. In the news conference on Monday, he said, “Being present in the Philadelphi corridor is a strategic, diplomatic issue,” and added: “We need to reinforce the fact that we’re there.”
That appears to be a change from an earlier cease-fire proposal that Israel had supported in May, which suggested that the military would pull out of the border zone. In late July, according to New York Times reporting, Israel provided new information to mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States that Israel only intended to reduce its forces in the area.
On Monday, Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said the corridor was the primary obstacle in the talks. “Without withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor, there will be no agreement,” Mr. Hayya, Hamas’s lead negotiator, told Al Jazeera.
Senior U.S. officials also said this week that the Biden administration is opposed to any ongoing Israeli presence in Gaza.
The cease-fire deal being discussed “included the removal of Israeli Defense Forces from all densely populated areas, and that includes those areas along that corridor. That’s the proposal that Israel had agreed to,” John F. Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said on Tuesday.
The post How a Corridor Separating Gaza and Egypt May Thwart Cease-Fire Talks appeared first on New York Times.
