Israel now has effective control over the whole land border of the Palestinian territory as Israeli soldiers have taken over a buffer zone that runs along the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, the military announced on Wednesday.
Additionally, Israel persisted in its murderous strikes on the southern Gazan city of Rafah in defiance of an International Court of Justice ruling to cease operations on the area, where half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents had earlier sought safety.
Chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari announced in a televised briefing that Israeli forces had achieved “operational” control of the “Philadelphi Corridor,” which is the code term used by the Israeli military for the 9-mile, 14-kilometer corridor that runs along the Gaza Strip’s sole border with Egypt.
“The Philadelphi Corridor served as an oxygen line for Hamas, which it regularly used to smuggle weapons into the area of the Gaza Strip,” Hagari said. The armed Palestinian organization in charge of the blockaded area is called Hamas.
Although Hagari did not define “operational” control, an Israeli military official had before claimed that there were Israeli “boots on the ground” in certain areas of the corridor.
The only land boundary of the Gaza Strip that Israel did not directly control was the border with Egypt along its southern edge.
Israel launched tank incursions into Rafah earlier on Wednesday. On Tuesday, they entered the center of Rafah for the first time, defying a ruling by the highest court of the United Nations to stop the attack on the city right now.
