News Desk - The Cradle
Israel has killed over 21,000 Palestinians while waging the most 'devastating urban warfare in the modern record'
During a press conference Saturday at the Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu stated, “My policy is clear: We continue to fight until all the objectives of the war have been achieved, primarily the elimination of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”
Netanyahu said that the Philadelphi Route, which runs for 14 kilometers along the entire Gaza-Egypt border, “has to be in our hands” to ensure that Gaza becomes and remains demilitarized.
This is a further sign Israel seeks to occupy the entire Gaza Strip as part of a broader plan to forcibly expel its 2.3 million residents and rebuild Gush Katif, the Jewish settlement bloc on the Gaza coast that was evacuated in 2005 by then prime minister Ariel Sharon.
US officials have called for the Gaza Strip to be governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Fatah party leader Mahmoud Abbas, after the war. But Netanyahu rejected this at the press conference, stating, “Not Fatahstan and not Hamastan.”
Under the provisions of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, the Philadelphi Route was established as a buffer zone controlled and patrolled by Israeli forces.
The route extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Kerem Shalom crossing, a three-way border crossing between Israel, Egypt, and Gaza.
After the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel was allowed to retain the security corridor, but removed its forces following the 2005 evacuation, or disengagement. It was then patrolled by a PA force until Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
To take control of the Philadelphi Route once again, Israel would have to take control of the border city of Rafah, the last area in Gaza which has not seen major fighting.
The fighting between invading Israeli ground forces and Hamas in southern Gaza has focused in Al-Bureij, Nuseirat, Maghazi and Khan Younis, according to residents speaking with Reuters.
Israeli ground forces have been backed by intensive air strikes that have killed at least 21,672 Palestinians since the beginning of the war on 7 October, according to health authorities in Gaza, with more than 56,000 injured and thousands more feared dead under the rubble.
Israel’s bombardment has killed 165 people and wounded 250 others in Gaza in just the past 24 hours, Palestinian health authorities said.
The Wall Street Journal reported on 31 December that Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”
“By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools. Much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair,” the Journal added.
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