Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again has issued a statement firmly denying that Israel will withdraw from the strategic Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-kilometer strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
“The report on Channel 11 to the effect that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed that Israel will withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor – is incorrect,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a curt statement Wednesday night.
“Israel will insist on the achievement of all its objectives for the war, as they have been defined by the Security Cabinet, including that Gaza never again constitutes a security threat to Israel. This requires securing the southern border,” the PMO emphasized.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have all been pressuring Israel to withdraw from the area as a concession to Hamas, a move that would allow the terrorist organization to rearm and once again threaten Israel’s existence in very short order.
Israel’s presence in the Philadelphi Corridor – where more than 150 terror tunnels have been found thus far – is one of several main sticking points in hostage release talks with the Hamas terrorist organization.
It’s a point on which Egypt – a nation that holds a peace treaty with Israel – supports Hamas.
Many of the tunnels discovered by Israeli forces in the Philadelphi Corridor were large enough to accommodate the passage of trucks carrying imported weapons, operatives, drugs and luxury goods, among other items, from Egypt into Gaza. Some of the subterranean routes were multi-story passageways as well, the IDF revealed.
It was a lucrative win-win for Cairo as well as Hamas, with taxes imposed on importers and exporters alike at each end of the tunnel routes, and especially important for the terrorists who used the routes to receive military, technical and financial support from Iran.
Hamas has not budged on its demand for Israel to leave the area but so far, Israel hasn’t agreed despite multiple mainstream media claims to the contrary.
