Inside the sprawling military zone Israel uses to control Gaza From within
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. TEL AVIV—One of the first things Israel did when it invaded Gaza in October last year was carve a dirt road across the middle of the strip. It was then wide enough for two armored vehicles.
Today, it is a sprawling 18-square-mile zone. Inside the zone, called the Netzarim corridor after a former Israeli settlement, there are two military bases made up of trailer-sized mobile bomb shelters with water, electrical poles, cellular towers and a synagogue. The road is now paved, and soldiers zip along in open-top vehicles through an area the size of Tel Aviv.
The Netzarim corridor is one of the growing signs that the Israeli military is planning for an indefinite stay in Gaza. Israel has created several other military roads in Gaza, and blocked out a roughly half-mile buffer zone snaking around the territory. Taken together, they paint a picture of tight Israeli control that some Israelis and Palestinians worry presages a long-term Israeli occupation or even a rebuilding of Jewish settlements in Gaza—something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said won’t happen.
Nearly everything around the Netzarim corridor is destroyed—Palestinian neighborhoods, villages and farmland. Israel uses the corridor to maintain tight control over Gaza’s flow of people, goods and weapons. It is common for militaries to strengthen logistical lines and establish forward operating bases during counter insurgencies, said Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London.
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