Israel cuts off Rafah, issues new forced displacement orders for Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The army says it completed the Morag Corridor as it threatens to expand its operations to ‘most of Gaza’s territory.’

The Israeli military has said it completed the construction of what it calls the Morag Corridor, which cuts off the city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza, as it expanded its attacks on the southern part of the Strip.

The Israeli army’s Arabic language spokesperson on Saturday issued new forced displacement orders for several neighbourhoods in Khan Younis, warning of an imminent attack “with great force” in response to alleged Hamas rockets fired at Israel from this area.

Residents in Qizan an-Najjar, Qizan Abu Rashwan, al-Salam, al-Manara, al-Qurain, Maen, al-Batn al-Sameen, Jurt al-Lot, al-Fakhari and the southern neighbourhoods of Bani Suheila were ordered to leave their homes and proceed to al-Mawasi, on Gaza’s sea coast.

The announcement came amid a barrage of drone attacks and artillery shelling on Khan Younis that killed at least two people.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Morag Corridor effectively turned Rafah into an “Israeli security zone” and added that the Netzarim Corridor, which divides the Strip in two, would also be expanded.

“Willful passage” will be granted for Palestinians who wish to flee Gaza, Katz said in a statement, mentioning again US President Trump’s plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza.

Katz told Gaza’s besieged population he was offering them the “last chance to banish Hamas and release all hostages, stopping the war,” or else Israeli operations will spread to “most of Gaza’s territory”.

Hamas issued a statement accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war despite repeated calls from within Israeli society to halt the conflict. “The equation is clear: the release of captives in exchange for a cessation of the war. The world accepts it, but Netanyahu rejects it,” it said.

“The blood of Gaza’s children and the occupation’s prisoners are victims of Netanyahu’s ambitions to remain in power and to escape prosecution”.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan’s capital Amman, said the Israeli defence minister had given Palestinians an ultimatum. “Topple Hamas and deliver the Israeli captives, Katz said, that’s the only way to end the war,” Odeh said.

About 2.1 million Palestinians are now squeezed into about one-third of Gaza and no trucks carrying aid, food, cooking gas, or fuel have entered the Strip since Israel reimposed a blockade last month. Katz has publicly stated that, since breaking the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, Israel’s goal has been to apply pressure on the civilian population, the correspondent added.

Robert Geist Pinfold, a lecturer in international security at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that while Israel says the creation of the Morag Corridor is purely operational and meant to constrain Hamas, it appears to be part of a longer-term Israeli strategy to control Gaza from afar.

“Israel has always sought to control the Gaza Strip, particularly to oversee what comes in and what comes out and ‘security’ over the territories, as Israel would call it,” he said.

“These [Morag, Netzarim and Philadelphi] corridors are named after settlements, and the settlements did not appear there randomly. They were put there for this specific purpose: to cut off Gaza’s urban areas and give Israel the ability to squeeze the territory when and if it desires.”