Two military bases and a north-south buffer strip have joined the Netzarim and Philadelphi roads over last several months
The IDF zones that the army’s engineers have created within the Gaza Strip over the last year show that it’s serious about maintaining security control of the enemy territory for at least the medium-term, the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) reported Friday.
By examining satellite imagery, the daily drew a clear picture of the new roads and infrastructure Israel has built in order to help the army’s efforts against the Hamas terrorists, as well as ensure security for Israeli citizens after the war is over.
Only a few weeks into the ground incursion into Gaza, which began in late October, 2023, troops started blowing up the buildings within a kilometer of the border to create a buffer zone for the kibbutzim and moshavim whose fields and home came within meters sometimes of the original fence.
By now, reported NZZ, approximately 90% of a north-south, kilometer-wide strip has been razed to the ground.
The Philadelphi Corridor on the Egyptian-Gazan border that had been the main smuggling route for Hamas weaponry, both over and under the ground, has been turned into a constantly patrolled, two-lane, paved road, enabling the IDF to shut down this “oxygen pipeline,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dubbed it.
The biggest project has been the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts completely through the Strip about a third of the way down from its northern tip, through the outer parts of Gaza City.
The seven-kilometer-long road is wide, well-paved, and protected by earthen embankments in certain sections on either side. There are also watchtowers and at least two army bases dotting its flanks.
Buildings have been steadily demolished all around the road to a form a secure zone five to six kilometers wide.
The corridor started as the answer to a tactical need but is now “a strategic element,” Mitvim think-tank president Nimrod Goren told the paper. “It also serves to divide the territory, to control the movement of the Palestinian population, to enable ongoing action against Hamas infrastructure and to show that Israel will not be leaving any time soon.”
This differs, for example, from several short access roads from Israeli territory, mostly to heavily populated areas like Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, that have also been constructed.
PHOTO: Use according to Section 27 A