For Israel, the Philadelphi Corridor must be a red line - opinion

There is bitter irony underlying the raging debate about whether Israel should hold on to the Philadelphi Corridor at the southern end of Gaza even at the expense of a possible hostage deal with Hamas.

It was, after all, precisely 19 years ago this month, on September 12, 2005, that the IDF withdrew from Philadelphi, thereby capping off the Israeli retreat from the Gaza Strip.

That disastrous move, in defiance of strategic logic as well as common sense, set the stage for the traumatic series of events that have enveloped the Jewish state since Oct. 7.

And yet here we are, just three months after Israeli troops resumed control over the Philadeliphi Corridor, and the government is coming under heavy criticism for insisting on retaining it.

While there are plenty of legitimate issues for which the government can and should be criticized, the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor is most certainly not one of them.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out in his press conference this past Monday with assistance from some maps as visual aids, the 14-km. strip of land separating Gaza and Egypt is critical to ensuring that Hamas can never again rise from the ashes.

Netanyahu rightly highlighted the fact that the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the corridor resulted in a “massive introduction of weapons, munitions, machines for producing weapons, and machines for digging tunnels – all sponsored by Iran, directed by Iran, financed by Iran.”

This is not mere spin. 

Last month, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that more than 150 tunnels built by Hamas have been discovered along the Philadelphi Corridor alone, and it is believed there are still dozens more yet to be found.

In fact, in late July the IDF revealed that it had uncovered a tunnel that was large enough to allow big vehicles to pass through undetected.

If anyone is wondering how Hamas was able to obtain the extensive military hardware that it had before the outbreak of the current war, they need look no further than Philadelphi which, thanks to Egyptian incompetence or connivance, served as the terrorist organization’s lifeline for nearly two decades. 

Indeed, in the lead-up to the Israeli pullout from Gaza in 2005, many warned against abandoning the Philadelphi Corridor because of its critical importance.

On February 17, 2004, Ynet reported that the special team headed by retired major general Giora Eiland, which had been established by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to plan the Gaza retreat, believed that Israel could not allow itself to leave the corridor.

Citing unnamed security sources, the article said that the IDF believed Philadelphi to be “an essential asset” to prevent Hamas from bringing in weapons and manpower to Gaza.

Gideon Ezra, a minister in Sharon’s government who supported the Gaza withdrawal, nonetheless opposed pulling out of the Philadelphi Corridor, telling Ynet that “we must remain there; otherwise, they will smuggle in weapons freely.”

Later that year at a cabinet meeting on September 19, 2004, the head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) at the time, Avi Dichter, also expressed firm opposition to the idea of turning over Philadelphi.

According to a report in Globes, he told the government that the Gaza withdrawal should not include Philadelphi, lest it turn into “a central corridor for smuggling weapons into Gaza.”

It is said that even Sharon was initially against the idea and only relented when his legal advisers told him that Israel would be accused of failing to withdraw completely from Gaza if it retained control over the corridor.

So out of concern for what the world might say, Israel abandoned a key strategic asset, paving the way for the cancer that is Hamas to metastasize and grow.

Sadly, both the media and even some members of the government seem to have ignored this lesson.

Instead, they have been pushing the falsehood that Israel faces a binary decision: either holding on to Philadelphi or reaching a deal to free the hostages.

This could not be further from the truth. In addition to oversimplifying a complex situation, it is based on the entirely specious assumption that Hamas wants a deal and the only thing standing in the way is Israel’s insistence on control over the corridor.

Yet Hamas’s behavior in recent months has manifestly shown that they have no interest in forging a deal with Israel, which is why they have repeatedly turned down various proposals made by the US.

Hence, to cast blame on the Netanyahu government for preventing an agreement is not only misplaced but entirely unfair and woefully inaccurate. There is no deal simply because Hamas doesn’t want one.

What many seem to forget is that Israel is entitled to have red lines too, matters of principle that it cannot and will not violate because of their centrality to national security.

Just as it proved to be 19 years ago, a withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor would be a catastrophic strategic mistake, one that would inevitably give rise to the smuggling of arms into Gaza and make another Oct. 7 possible.

If the words “Never again is now” are to have any meaning, this cannot and must not be allowed to occur. 

The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.