An Israeli military analyst warns that the withdrawal from the Netzarim axis means Hamas will regain control of northern Gaza.
Noam Amir, the military affairs analyst for Israel’s Channel 14, said on Sunday that the army’s withdrawal from the Netzarim axis means that Hamas will soon regain full control of the northern Gaza Strip and that Tel Aviv will lose the war’s achievements once and for all.
Amir described the Netzarim Corridor as a “buffer zone between the north and south of the Strip” and a “very important strategic point” for Israel.
According to Amir, withdrawing from Netzarim equates to “returning control to Hamas, which means that we are definitively losing the war’s achievement”.
According to the Israeli analyst, the army will now besiege the Gaza Strip after withdrawing from Netzarim from the Tel al-Sultan naval point on the Egyptian border to the Rafah crossing, and from the Rafah crossing along the perimeter of the area adjacent to Gaza to the second naval point near Asqalan (Ashkelon), adding that “the navy will provide a kind of naval blockade.”
Mass Graves and Skeletons Found in Netzarim after Israeli Withdrawal
On Sunday morning, the Israeli Army Radio reported that the army had completely withdrawn from the Netzarim axis as part of the implementation of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
The Israeli Channel 13 added that after the withdrawal from Netzarim, the Israeli army will remain on the Philadelphi Corridor (it is supposed to withdraw from it on the 50th day of the agreement) on the border between Gaza and Egypt and the buffer zone (it established along the border with the Gaza Strip) until the end of the first stage of the deal.
On January 25, the occupation halted the withdrawal from the Netzarim axis after the Palestinian resistance did not release the prisoner Arbel Yehud due to “technical difficulties in Gaza,” in a crisis that was eventually resolved and she was released on the 30th of the same month.
On January 27, Palestinians started returning to the northern Gaza Strip on foot via the coastal road and by vehicle on Salah al-Din Road, while three American and Egyptian security companies took over the process of searching the returning vehicles, according to Israeli media.
Israel Withdraws from Netzarim Corridor, Leaving Behind Devastation
A ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a prisoner exchange agreement between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli government went into effect on January 19.
The agreement consists of 3 stages, each lasting 42 days, during which negotiations will begin to begin the second and third stages, leading to the end of the war of extermination.
With American support, Israeli forces carried out a genocidal war on Gaza between October 7, 2023, and January 19, 2025, leaving more than 158,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded – most of them children and women – and more than 14,000 missing.
