Fighting took place in the city of Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, on Wednesday (File)
Rafa:
The Israeli army said on Wednesday it had gained “operational control” over the strategic Philadelphia corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
“We have established operational control” over the 14-kilometer (8.5-mile) corridor, a military official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
The seizure of the Philadelphia corridor comes just weeks after Israeli forces took control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, on May 7, when the ground attack on the city of Gaza, in the far south, began.
The corridor served as a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, and Israeli troops patrolled it until 2005, when they were withdrawn as part of a broader withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Since then, however, there have been fears that the corridor was being used to funnel weapons to armed groups in Palestinian territory.
Fighting broke out in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Wednesday, residents and officials said, a day after Israeli tanks reached the city center.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 who the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory.
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