The soldiers of Israel retired Sunday from a key corridor dividing the Gaza Strip, leaving almost the whole north of the territory, as required by a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas before any negotiation for a more sustainable agreement .
The departure of the soldiers of the Netzarim corridor in Gaza came while the Israeli government sent a delegation to Qatar during the weekend to discuss the next group of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be released during the initial phase of Cessor’s agreement, which has entered into force months and is underway.
The emaciated appearances of three Israeli hostages which were released on Saturday, stirring public comparisons with the victims of the holocaust, made a new pressure on negotiations.
On Sunday, in a statement, the Israeli army said that the troops “implemented the agreement” to leave the corridor and allow the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return home to northern Gaza.
Two Israeli military officials and a soldier in Gaza who were not allowed to discuss the situation publicly or by name said that the troops had already left the Netzarim corridor on Sunday morning.
Hamas also said that Israeli troops had left the area, saying in a statement that it was “a victory for the will of our people”.
Sunday withdrawal from the corridor means that the presence of Israeli troops in Gaza is now mainly limited to a small earth ribbon in the south of Gaza, near the Egyptian border, and a buffer area along the Israeli border.
The Gaza Interior Ministry alerted the Palestinians to the north that their vehicles could still be inspected by foreign security entrepreneurs to prevent weapons from being transferred from the South.
“We call on citizens to be careful and to join the move according to the mechanism currently authorized for their security,” the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement on Sunday.
The Israeli army had ordered a massive evacuation in the north of Gaza in the first days of the war and patrolled the corridor, in part to prevent the Palestinians from returning. Israeli troops had already withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor last month, letting foreign entrepreneurs fill the void.
Their complete withdrawal of the corridor was required in the first phase of 42 days of the ceasefire agreement-which is now halfway-and necessary to go to its next step to end the war in Gaza.
New important traps to achieve an agreement for the next phase – which could involve a complete Israeli military withdrawal from all Gaza – emerged in last week, however, after President Trump said that the United States could resume Gaza and transform it into the “Rivera du Middle East” by moving its Palestinian residents.
Sunday, the Ministry of Saudi Arabia again rejected the proposal, repeating that no sustainable peace agreement could be achieved without creating a sovereign Palestinian state – a diplomatic objective for generations, but that civil servants and experts say Now is probably almost impossible to reach.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it would organize an Arab summit planned at the request of Palestinian officials.
The emaciated appearance of three Israeli hostages which was released by Hamas on Saturday also stimulated a general concern in Israel that his Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did not act quickly enough to ensure the release of their or others – Increasing pressure on the Israeli government to bring the rest of the captives back to home and go to the second phase of an agreement.
Sunday, the family of Alon Ohel, one of the still detained hostages, said in a press release published by a group representing parents of the captives which, for the first time, since more than 490 days since it had been seized , they had received a word that he is alive and that he was detained in tunnels in Gaza with some recently released people. The declaration required that Israeli leaders “take the humanitarian measures necessary to save Alon and the other victims of the hell they live”.
“Time is exhausted,” added the declaration. “The second phase of the agreement must be put forward to bring back all the hostages.”
But despite the presence of negotiators and mediators this weekend in Qatar, no progress was expected in the talks concerning the next stage of the truce, until Mr. Netanyahu contains a meeting of his best officials of the security in the coming days.
In an interview on Saturday in Washington, where he had met the Trump administration, Netanyahu said that Hamas, no, was to blame for the conditions of the hostages. He predicted that at least half a dozen additional hostages would be published at the end of next week.
“We have three war objectives in Gaza,” said Netanyahu in a Interview with Fox News. “First, destroy the military and governing capacities of Hamas. Two, take out all the hostages. Three, make sure that Gaza never represents a threat to Israel again. And I am determined to make the three.
Even when Israeli troops left the key corridor in Gaza, intermittent violence continued. Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defense Agency in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said that three people had been killed and that several were injured by Israeli shots in Israeli gunshots East of Gaza and warned residents to stay far from the Israeli and military border.
The Israeli army said on Sunday that his soldiers had shot several suspects in the Northern Gaza Strip which were “a few hundred meters”, noting that the soldiers had fired war. “Tubes have been identified,” said the army, without providing information on the victims.
Matan Weitz, spokesperson for Kibbutz Nahal Oz, an Israeli border community, said that Israeli soldiers stationed near the village have spotted a violation of the perimeter and that people moving in a prohibited area and that soldiers shot them .
“From the interior of the Kibbutz, we heard the shooting,” he said, noting that there had been an intensified military activity immediately after, including reservoir and vehicle movements.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Sunday that there would be “zero tolerance” for threats to soldiers or Israeli communities near the border.
Netanyahu, addressing the legislators in Israel on Sunday after his return from Washington, also mentioned the episode on the border. “No one reaches the end of the perimeter or between,” he said.
In addition, the Israeli army said on Sunday that its soldiers had shot a warning fire on a ship after the Israeli navy observed a suspicious ship “violating security restrictions in the maritime area of the Gaza Strip”; He said that the ship has moved away from itself in response.
The Israeli army has also maintained raids and patrols in occupied West Bank which, according to him, aims to eliminate activists before potential attacks. “We will continue to exercise a very, very strong offensive effort” in the West Bank, said Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the army on Sunday, told the troops.
Palestinian health officials said that at least two people, including an eight-month pregnant woman, had been killed in the Nour-Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm. The Israeli army said its police criminal investigation unit began an investigation.
Hiba yazbek,, Gabby Sobelman And Johnatan Reiss Contributed reports.
