A NARROW CORRIDOR IN GAZA HAS BECOME AN OBSTACLE TO CEASEFIRE / THE ECONOMIST

The Philadelphi story

A narrow corridor in Gaza has become an obstacle to a ceasefire

Binyamin Netanyahu says the presence of Israeli troops is crucial. His generals disagree

Photograph: AFP

ON ISRAELI tactical maps the narrow corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is code-named “Philadelphi”. 

It is a rubble-strewn wasteland, just 14km long and around a kilometre wide. 

And yet it has become one of the main obstacles to a ceasefire agreement which could perhaps end the war in Gaza.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, claims the corridor is the main smuggling route through which Hamas’s Iranian benefactors supplied the weapons that enabled the group to launch the devastating attacks on Israel on October 7th 2023. 

He insists that it is critical for Israel to maintain a military presence there. 

If the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) withdrew from Philadelphi, Mr Netanyahu claims, Hamas would be able to secure the resources to carry out “another October 7th and another”. 

On August 29th the Israeli cabinet passed a decision to keep troops in the corridor indefinitely (only Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, voted against it). 

That may scupper any chance of reaching a deal to secure the release of 101 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

The generals and spy chiefs within Israel’s security establishment disagree with their prime minister. 

And it is puzzling that if holding the corridor is so central to Israel’s security, Mr Netanyahu waited seven months after the war began before giving the order to occupy the territory.

To understand the importance of the Philadelphi Corridor, start overground, then go under. 

The area is based on the border demarcated early in the 20th century between the British and Ottoman empires. But that was just a line on a map. 

The first time a physical border fence went up on the Philadelphi Corridor was as part of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. 

In 1982 Israel returned to Egypt the Sinai Peninsula which it had captured in the Six-Day War, in 1967. 

Egypt, however, had no interest in controlling the Gaza Strip, which it had kept under military occupation between 1948 and 1967. 

So Israel occupied Gaza until it unilaterally withdrew from the strip in 2005.

Mr Netanyahu claims that leaving the Philadelphi Corridor at that point was a fatal flaw in Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza, implemented by the then prime minister and his rival for leadership of the Likud party, Ariel Sharon. 

He ignores, conveniently, the fact that the network of tunnels under the border was excavated and the smuggling trade through them flourished from the 1980s onwards, when Israel was still in control of the corridor.

Israeli security officials insist that while a few tunnels were still being used in recent years, major engineering and demolition operations carried out by the Egyptian army on its side of the border had destroyed most of them and put an end to the commercial-scale smuggling. 

IDF officers say that most of the tunnels they have discovered since they began searching in May have not been used for years.

In a rare interview aired on September 6th, Nadav Argaman, the former chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal-security agency, said what his colleagues still in service could not: Mr Netanyahu’s recent press conferences on the matter were “the best show in town”, but “there was no connection between the weapons in the Gaza Strip and the Philadelphi Corridor.”

So how did Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups smuggle in the weapons and rockets used on October 7th? 

Israel believes most of the weapons came overground through the Rafah crossing, which is in the southern part of the corridor. 

The crossing is managed by Egyptian officials who either turned a blind eye or were bribed—probably both. 

The thousands of rockets used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to fire on Israel were manufactured in underground factories within Gaza, using Iranian know-how and “dual-use” materials (things that might be used for building houses, for example, but could also be used to build bombs), some of which entered the strip legally through the border crossings with Israel.

The best way to prevent smuggling in the future, say Israeli defence experts, is to force Egypt to tighten its border controls. 

If Hamas were to start using the tunnels again, they concede, Israeli troops would have to return to Philadelphi to destroy them. 

But Egypt will not discuss any new arrangements for the Rafah crossing until Israel commits itself to withdrawing from Gaza entirely.

Israel’s security chiefs also say that keeping troops in Philadelphi is of dubious tactical advantage because it leaves IDF soldiers and vehicles vulnerable to attacks by Hamas and jeopardises the lives of the remaining hostages (at least a third of whom are already presumed dead). 

Mr Netanyahu remains impervious to such arguments. 

He insists that he understands Israel’s national-security interests better than the generals who failed Israel on October 7th . 

He strenuously denies that he has any other interest in pushing to keep Israeli troops in place. 

The timing of the prime minister’s insistence that Israeli troops remain in Philadelphi suggests otherwise.

On April 27th Israel passed on to the American administration a proposal for a ceasefire in stages. 

In the second phase it included a full withdrawal of IDF forces from Gaza. 

That proposal was approved by the war cabinet before Israel captured the Philadelphi Corridor (which was not mentioned in the plan; nor was Rafah). 

Several weeks later Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two centrist ministers, resigned from the cabinet after concluding that Mr Netanyahu had no intention of accepting a ceasefire agreement.

As ever with Mr Netanyahu, he is guided by his own political interests. 

His political fate will be decided by his far-right coalition partners, who were not party to the original ceasefire proposal and have made it clear they will abandon his government if Israel agrees to a ceasefire. 

Philadelphi, where the IDF had not even begun operating when the original plan was laid out, is a new and convenient spanner for Mr Netanyahu to throw into the works.

The prime minister faces not only the generals’ dissent, but also growing public anger, with mass protests led by relatives of the hostages. 

Neither group can bring down his government. 

Nor can the Biden administration, which along with Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been scrabbling to come up with a formula that both sides can accept.

Even if they can find a solution that satisfies both Israel and Hamas, which insists on guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal before releasing any hostages, six of whom it recently executed, a ceasefire is far from assured. 

Neither Hamas nor Israel’s hardliners seem capable now of reaching one. 

On September 4th Mr Netanyahu was asked whether Philadelphi was the only obstacle to a deal. 

He laughed: “No, it’s not.” 

In fact, he continued, everything can still be an obstacle. 

Philadelphi is just the latest excuse.