Tens of thousands of people crowded along Al-Rashid Street in Gaza on January 27 and headed north toward Gaza City. They were walking from the central camps area on the coast near Nuseirat along the coast. This means crossing the Netzarim corridor, an area south of Gaza city that the IDF has controlled since late October 2023. An agreement on January 26 that is part of the wider ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has resulted in the Netzarim area being opened to civilians to cross.
The IDF took this area in the wake of the October 7 attack. Throughout the war the IDF held the corridor, basically cutting off Gaza City and northern Gaza from the rest of Gaza. Many people, maybe hundreds of thousands, moved from northern Gaza, to central and southern Gaza during the war.
Now they are returning home. Some of them will find their neighborhoods in ruins, with no homes to return to. Some of them will find damaged buildings that likely need repair. Others may find neighborhoods that are less damaged. It depends on where they are from. The worst destruction in Jabalya where the IDF recently operated for three months.
The Netzarim corridor was a symbol of the war effort. Israel invested in the corridor, widening it in many operations, creating a road and other small facilities so that an IDF division could control it with two brigades. Over the 15 months of the war there was all sorts of talk about how the IDF would stay in this area. There was talk about how Gaza would end up like the West Bank, with a permanent IDF presence in areas like this.
There was even talk about seizing control of most of northern Gaza so that the population would not return. None of the talk ever seemed to be part of a wider strategic long-term plan. This left the IDF with tactical decisions to make in places like Netzarim.
The corridor was run by IDF divisions that rotated in and out of it. The 99th and the 252nd divisions became the key units involved in the rotation. They often were provided with two brigades, one of infantry and one with tanks, to run the area. This was not a battlefield, it was rather an open area without many houses. It was called “Netzarim” because there had been a Jewish community here up until 2005’s Disengagement.
Two major roads cross the corridor, Salah al-Din in the middle and Rashid on the coast. These are the main north-south roads in Gaza. The IDF also opened up a road that went from the coast to Israel, so troops and also trucks and aid could move east-west along the corridor. The corridor road ended at a gate called “Gate 96” that opened into Israel. From there it was a mile or two to drive to an area near Kibbutz Be’eri.
Be’eri was the site of a terrible massacre on October 7, so everyone rotating in and out of Netzarim was keenly aware of the mission. There is also a monument here to the ANZACs, which honors members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought in this area in the First World War (1914–1918). After all, this isn’t the first war fought over Gaza and this area.
A symbol of a greater issue
Netzarim was a symbol of some of the Gaza war’s problems as well.
In late February 2023, dozens of Gazans were killed trying to rush aid trucks in Gaza. The scenes were grim and this led the Biden administration to decide to send a floating pier that would be constructed on the coast of Gaza. The Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) pier is part of a US army capability that can enable ships to create a pier that can be attached to shore.
The pier can then receive trucks and aid. Several small US Army ships were mobilized, including USAV James A. Loux, the USAV Montorrey, USAV Matamoros and USAV Wilson Wharf. It took them ore than a month to sail to Gaza from March to April. In May and June, the Americans attempted to use the pier to deliver aid, but the waves and other issues made it difficult. Eventually the pier was dismantled and sent back to the US. It took months for it and the ships to get back to the US by October.
The pier was a symbol of not having a long-term vision for Gaza. The obvious solution to the aid issue in Gaza was not to spend months building a pier, but to send trucks from Ashdod or other places. Similar to the airdrops of aid that also became a feature of the war, the obvious solution of trucking in aid was not a focus, rather various ideas that didn’t work were tried. In the end the Netzarim corridor was one of many routes that could be used for the delivery of aid.
However, disputes over how aid should be delivered often hampered efforts.
The Netzarim corridor would have provided the IDF an easy way to enter Gaza City and also the central camps, the two areas Hamas controlled continually throughout the war. However, the decision was never made to remove Hamas from Gaza.
Instead the IDF waited in the corridor for a decision to emerge on how the war would develop in Gaza. By September 2024, the IDF had shifted focus to fight Hezbollah. Eventually one last large operation was decided upon. The 162nd IDF division was sent into Jabalya in October for three months of fighting. Around 70,000 Gazans had to evacuate and thousands of terrorists were identified in Jabalya and other areas of northern Gaza. It was a tough battle and the IDF suffered casualties. It was clear Hamas was not beaten and was recruiting.
In early January, the ceasefire deal was being hammered out and it was clear the IDF would leave northern Gaza and Netzarim. When the deal was signed the agreement was that hostages would be released in the first phase and the IDF would begin to withdraw. A brief dispute over which hostages would be released on January 25 led to the IDF staying in the corridor a few more days.
However, on January 27 the corridor re-opened to Gazans, fifteen months after IDF tanks had seized it on October 27, 2023.
Some Israeli politicians in Israel call for a return to war. They voted against the hostage deal and wanted to keep fighting in Gaza. It’s not clear what they wanted the IDF to do that hadn’t already been done. There doesn’t seem to be a plan or strategy to remove Hamas.
Hamas is recruiting again and controls most of Gaza. Lessons will emerge from the Gaza war. As people move north it seems that a lot of this war consisted of short-term tactical concepts that led to things like the Netzarim corridor. However, the corridor was never part of a larger approach that could have removed Hamas from Gaza.
