Amid efforts by international mediators to broker a ceasefire and prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, a speech by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in early September effectively thwarted any chances of a deal.
The Israeli leader’s latest tactic to sabotage the talks is his uncompromising insistence that Israel continues to occupy the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt as an “existential” security necessity, a position that violates US President Joe Biden’s proposal.
Netanyahu claimed that “the achievement of the war's objectives goes through the Philadelphi Corridor”, arguing it is Hamas’ main smuggling point for weapons and equipment and that Israel’s withdrawal would allow the group to smuggle hostages out of Gaza and enable 7 October attacks “again and again and again”.
US officials involved in ceasefire talks said that Netanyahu’s speech “torpedoed” negotiations and ended any hope of achieving a breakthrough.
Israeli generals and experts, meanwhile, have admitted in Hebrew media reports that the Philadelphi Corridor is one of the “biggest frauds of the war” and even “the biggest bluff since the establishment of Israel”.
They also admit that the chances of 7 October happening again are close to zero even if Hamas regains its full strength in Gaza.
Sabotaging a Gaza ceasefire deal
On 2 July, a slightly amended version of Biden’s 31 May proposal was endorsed by Hamas. Mediators informed the group that both Israel and the US accepted this formula, one Hamas leader told The New Arab.
The proposal stipulated that in the first 42-day-long phase of the ceasefire, the Israeli military would make a gradual and full withdrawal eastward from the Gaza Strip to stay in the 1-km deep buffer zone Israel created inside Gaza during the war, until the second phase of permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal.
Soon after, Israel made an assassination attempt against the Al-Qassam Brigades chief Mohammed al-Deif, killed Hamas’ top leader Ismael Haniyeh in Iran, and dramatically escalated its massacres in Gaza to sabotage the deal. Hamas, meanwhile, informed mediators it still stood by the 2 July formula.
Netanyahu then imposed four deliberate deal-breaking conditions. These included retaining control of the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors; heavily restricting the return of refugees to Gaza’s northern half; 40 living Israeli hostages to be released in the first phase, including female soldiers, instead of 33 living and dead hostages; and demands for a full list of every living Israeli hostage in Gaza in advance.
Israel’s negotiating team told Netanyahu repeatedly that these conditions would sabotage the talks, and Hamas would not accept them. The prime minister responded by accusing them of being inept, saying “you’re flaccid, you don't know how to negotiate with Hamas".
Philadelphi is not Hamas' main smuggling point
Israeli experts admit that the Philadelphi Corridor is not Hamas’ “main axis for smuggling weapons”. Netanyahu’s Shin Bet chief until 2023, Nadav Argaman, emphasised last week that “there is zero connection between the weapons found in Gaza and the Philadelphi corridor”.
Egypt has flooded and destroyed the smuggling tunnels in that corridor since 2013. The Israeli army has still not found a single functioning tunnel there that crosses into Egypt, conceded Israeli veteran negotiator Gershon Baskin. They only found obsolete and abandoned ones that Egypt had sealed long prior to the war.
Ironically, Hamas gets most of its equipment from Israel itself, despite having imposed some of the severest restrictions worldwide on Gaza through its blockade. Hamas’ primitive rockets are made by recycling unexploded Israeli ordnance fired on Gaza (about 10% of Israeli bombs don’t explode).
The lathes Hamas uses in its workshops to make its projectiles are usually brought into Gaza from Israel from factories that were shut down or renewed, admits Israel’s Maariv newspaper. Those machines are transported as “iron waste” into Gaza where Hamas turns them into machines to make missiles.
Hamas tunnels are built with a mix of recycled rubble from the tens of thousands of homes Israel destroyed in previous wars and concrete that comes through Israel itself. Even Hamas’ trademark white Toyota vehicles that it used in the 7 October attack were brought into Gaza “through [Israel’s] Port of Ashdod and they were transported through the Kerem Shalom crossing,” Maariv reports.
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The claim that Hamas would use the Philadelphi Corridor to smuggle hostages and its leaders outside Gaza was exposed in Israel as a fraudulent hoax by none other than the Israeli military itself, prompting Haaretz to conclude that “Netanyahu is waging psychological warfare on his citizens”, while opposition leaders called for an investigation against the prime minister.
But even if Hamas were to use Philadelphi for smuggling, Israeli security experts admit that an army presence above the ground there would be entirely meaningless since Hamas can dig tunnels under their feet without them noticing.
Prior to 7 October, Israel had invested $1.1 billion in building an anti-tunnel 65km-long barrier underground in the east of Gaza, which Hamas overcame by simply digging deeper.
Why was Philadelphi never important before?
One question Israeli experts and opposition leaders have been asking since Netanyahu’s speech is why, if the Philadelphi Corridor is so important, has the Israeli leader never attempted to occupy it during his 15 years in office?
Israeli army general (reserve) Itzhak Brik told Israeli media he had asked years ago for Netanyahu to build a 14km-long barrier 50 meters deep in the corridor but that the Israeli PM replied, "Brik, that's not possible”.
Veteran Israeli journalist Avi Ashkenazi says Netanyahu “avoided, feared, hesitated, held back the occupation of Philadelphi” during his entire reign, asking, “what has changed now, how did Philadelphi become the rock of our existence?”
Similarly, Israeli experts have asked why Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza did not begin from the Philadelphi Corridor if it was so important, and why Netanyahu waited eight months to occupy it and cut Hamas’ ‘supply lines’.
Israel’s former defence minister, Benny Gantz, who sat in Netanyahu’s war cabinet until May, revealed that the prime minister hesitated and refused to make any move vis-à-vis Philadelphi whenever it was brought up.
What makes Netanyahu’s rigid position on Philadelphi even more unreasonable is that although an Israeli army withdrawal would be required by Day 22 of the ceasefire’s first phase, Israeli army generals have been telling the Israeli PM that the military could easily retake it if Israel were to pull out of the deal and resume the war.
A number of proposals have also been put on the table by Israel’s own negotiating team and mediators to satisfy Netanyahu, such as placing sensors and barriers at the corridor, but the prime minister has rejected them out of hand, despite a clear majority of Israelis approving the withdrawal.
Another 7 October is impossible
Netanyahu’s argument that ending the war on Gaza would render another 7 October inevitable has been debunked by several esteemed Israeli experts. For instance, veteran Israeli journalist Nir Gontarz noted in January that 7 October was more about "the stupidity, arrogance, and negligence of the Israeli army and government, than about sophistication and danger on the part of Hamas".
Surprise, which was the strongest element of success in Hamas’ attack, is now lost. Gontarz argues that Israel with more soldiers and aircraft along its borders and a sobered-up government, army, and intelligence community could easily block a repeat of the Hamas invasion.
Similarly, the experienced Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin, concludes that "the Israeli army has the full capacity to protect Israel's borders". He added that a primary reason for Israel’s security failure was "the result of two decades of turning the Israel Defence Forces into the Israeli occupation police in the West Bank. That's where the army was stationed on 7 October, and not on [Gaza’s] border".
On the eve of Hamas’ attack, Israel had 23 battalions in the West Bank and only three around Gaza. Israeli spy balloons that could have warned of the attack were “inoperable” and not being maintained. Israeli female spotters’ reports of Hamas’ movements were ignored. Red flags identified by Israel’s 8200 intelligence unit were underestimated and disregarded.
Many other similar failures made the attack possible. It is questionable whether Israel would have learned nothing from this nearly a year later and leave its borders unguarded for another similar attack.
Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer and analyst from Gaza and the EU Affairs Manager at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Follow him on Twitter: @muhammadshehad2