‘Critical to our security’: Netanyahu rejects leaving Philadelphi Corridor

‘If we leave, we may never return, and Gaza will again become an existential threat,’ the premier said.

By Sveta Listratov, TPS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected withdrawing forces from Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor in an address to the media on Monday night.

“Three out of our four war objectives pass through one place—the Philadelphi Corridor. It is Hamas’s oxygen pipeline and smuggling route,” he said.

“Without the national and international legitimacy to send forces back to Gaza, we couldn’t secure the Philadelphi Corridor for years. When we left the Philadelphi Corridor years ago, we effectively removed the barrier against the massive infiltration of weapons, arms, and tunnel-building machinery, all under Iran’s sponsorship. Gaza became a massive threat to Israel because there was no barrier. We fought this threat in three operations—targeting thousands of terrorists and senior commanders. Yet, we couldn’t go back for years,” Netanyahu added.

The media event came as pressure mounted for a hostage release agreement that would likely include concessions over Israel’s presence along the 14-km Gaza-Egypt border.

The recovery of six bodies from a tunnel in Rafah has made the families of Israel’s roughly 100 captives bitterly angry with the Prime Minister.

Autopsies revealed that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alex Labonov, Ori Danino and Carmel Gat had been killed an estimated 48 hours before being found by soldiers.

“A deal for the return of the abductees has been on the table for over two months,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Sunday.

“If it weren’t for the thwarting [of the deal], the excuses and the spins, the abductees whose deaths we learned of this morning would probably be alive.”

This corridor is a buffer zone that runs the length of the Gaza-Egypt border.

It was created in 2006 to prevent weapons smuggling after Israel disengaged from the Strip but Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority the following year.

The Histatdrut, Israel’s largest labor and trade union, held a nationwide general strike on Monday, closing many businesses and disrupting public transportation.

The strike ended in the afternoon when a Labor Court judge issued an injunction.

“The strike is political, there is no connection between the killing of the abductees and the economy,” the ruling said.

Panning the strike, Netanyahu said, “This enemy does not differentiate between left and right, religious and secular, Jews and non-Jews. We have realized this not only on October 7th but throughout this entire war. It became even clearer in the recent massacre of our captives.”

“Our presence in the Philadelphi Corridor is not just a military necessity but a strategic and national imperative. Hamas insists we shouldn’t be there, and for that very reason, I insist that we must,” Netanyahu concluded.

“If we leave, we may never return, and Gaza will again become an existential threat.”

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7.

Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead. Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.

GazaHamasIDFPhiladelphi CorridorRafah