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The Israeli military's new corridor across southern Gaza is designed to cut off any connection between Khan Younis and Rafah, a spokesman said on Thursday.
Troops started operating in the so-called Morag Corridor overnight on Tuesday, including areas in which the army had not yet fought and where “Hamas still has capabilities”, the military's international spokesman Nadav Shoshani said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the creation of the corridor in a speech on Wednesday evening. “We are cutting up the strip and we are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages,” he said, referring to Israelis seized by Hamas during the attack on October 7, 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.
Defence Minister Israel Katz warned earlier of a major expansion of the military operations, saying “large areas” of Gaza would be taken and added to Israel's security zones.
Mr Shoshani said the corridor would give Israel “an ability to act decisively against terror defensively and offensively”, and would make it easier for troops to “distinguish between terrorists and civilians”.
He said the military was “working to break” the connection between Rafah and Khan Younis, one of the most important areas of operation during the war. He highlighted the killing of then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Rafah last October, after a long period in which he was thought to have been sheltering in Khan Younis.
Mr Shoshani said the military was also operating in the Tel Al Sultan area of Rafah where Mr Sinwar was killed, and where he claimed Hamas operatives had regrouped and rearmed during nine weeks of a ceasefire that ended last month.
Mr Netanyahu described the Morag as “the second Philadelphi Corridor”, the Israeli name for the Salah Al Din, a strip of land along the Gaza side of its southern border with Egypt seized by Israel last May. He has repeatedly said control of the area is vital to cutting off Hamas’s supply of weapons.
The new corridor derives its name from the area of where an Israeli settlement stood before the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
Israel's military last year created the Netzarim Corridor to separate southern and central Gaza from the north of the strip, preventing displaced Palestinian residents who were forced to move south in the early days of the war from returning to their homes in the north. Israeli troops withdrew from Netzarim after a ceasefire deal with Hamas took hold on January 19 but reclaimed control after resuming attacks on Gaza on March 18.
Military strategy
While the goal of the corridors might appear to be simply to divide Gaza into three areas, the move is part of a wider strategy that prepares Israel for the full occupation of Gaza in the event that Hamas does not agree to its terms for ending the war, said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.
Israel wants Hamas to agree to a proposal by the US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff that entails handing over of half of the living and dead hostages before negotiations begin on a permanent ceasefire deal, which must include Hamas disarming and its leadership leaving Gaza.
"Israel is preparing for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip," Mr Michael told The National. "This is the only way forward if negotiations fail to dismantle Hamas's sovereignty in Gaza."
The Israeli military has this week issued eviction orders to residents of northern Gaza and in the south, including Rafah, ahead of military operations in those areas.
Mr Michael said Israel had provided safe passage to people fleeing their homes and that Rafah had been cleared of civilians. "Rafah is occupied – it is not under siege," he said.
However, Palestinians and NGOs say there is nowhere safe to go to in Gaza, while complaining of soaring prices in fuel caused by an Israeli blockade on the entry of aid. The National spoke to people in Rafah on Wednesday who said they were unable to seek shelter from impending Israeli bombardment because of a lack of transport and security.
