Philadelphi Corridor

Israeli broadcaster: Army fabricated Gaza tunnel discovery to stall ceasefire deal

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Israeli occupation soldiers move through agricultural lands during an Israeli raid in the rural areas of Tulkarm Refugee Camp in Tulkarm, West Bank on February 05, 2025 [Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency]

An investigation by Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN, has revealed that the Israeli military fabricated the discovery of a tunnel in the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, claiming the structure was, in fact, a shallow canal, Anadolu Agency reports.

Last August, the army published photos of an alleged tunnel in the demilitarised area along the border.

“There was never a tunnel, but a canal covered in dirt,” KAN said.

The purpose of this lie “was to exaggerate the importance of the Philadelphi Corridor and delay a hostage deal,” it added.

According to KAN, former Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, backed the findings, saying, “It was not a tunnel, but rather an attempt to prevent a ceasefire agreement.”

Gallant clarified that the structure was only about one meter deep and was misleadingly presented to the public as a deep tunnel. “It was promoted to the public as a deep tunnel to prevent reaching a deal with Hamas,” he added.

The Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, demands a full ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in return for any hostage swap deal.

There was no immediate comment from the army on the report.

The Israeli army resumed its assault on Gaza on 18 March, shattering a 19 January ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.

Israel has killed more than 51,200 Palestinians in the enclave since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: Under US pressure, Hamas and Israel to meet in Cairo for new round of talks

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingIsraeli broadcaster: Army fabricated Gaza tunnel discovery to stall ceasefire deal

Israeli Rights Group Leader Tells UN It’s Clear Netanyahu ‘Does Not Want’ a Hostage Deal

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference in Jerusalem on September 4, 2024. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel’s far-right government is “cynically exploiting our collective trauma” to “violently advance its project of cementing Israel’s control” over Palestinian land, said B’Tselem CEO Yuli Novak.

The head of a leading Israeli human rights organization told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that Israel’s far-right government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, obviously “does not want” to reach a hostage-release and cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

Yuli Novak, the CEO of B’Tselem, said in an address to the U.N. body that the Netanyahu government is “cynically exploiting our collective trauma” in the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack to “violently advance its project of cementing Israel’s control” over Palestinian land.

“To do that, it is waging war on the entire Palestinian people, committing war crimes almost daily,” said Novak. “In Gaza, this has taken the form of expulsion, starvation, killing, and destruction on an unprecedented scale.”

Watch Novak’s full speech:

Novak’s remarks came days after Israelis poured into the streets en masse over the weekend following their government’s announcement that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza, heightening outrage over Netanyahu’s obstruction of cease-fire talks.

In a speech on Monday, Netanyahu doubled down on his new hardline demands that have dampened hopes of a deal to end Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and free the more than 60 living hostages still in captivity in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Hamas has rejected the prime minister’s demand that any deal include indefinite Israeli military control of the Philadelphi Corridor—a narrow strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt—leaving cease-fire talks at a standstill as the war on Gaza nears the 11-month mark.

Gershon Baskin, a longtime Israeli hostage negotiator who has engaged in back-channel talks with Hamas since the October 7 attack, told Democracy Now! on Wednesday that the Philadelphi Corridor demand “is a made-up issue by Netanyahu to create… a new excuse for Israel to remain in Gaza.”

“It’s very clear that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the war,” Baskin said.

In a social media post earlier this week, Baskin accused Netanyahu of “sacrificing the hostages on an altar of his own personal political survival.”

The view that Netanyahu is deliberately sabotaging hostage-release talks is hardly fringe: As Jacobin‘s Branko Marcetic observed Wednesday, that assessment has become commonplace across Israeli society, including inside Netanyahu’s government.

Marcetic cited recent reports from dozens of mainstream Israeli and U.S. media outlets casting Netanyahu—who faces corruption charges in his country—as the primary obstacle to a cease-fire agreement.

One unnamed Israeli official, identified as a senior member of the country’s government, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz over the weekend that the blood of hostages “is on [Netanyahu’s] hands.”

“He knew the hostages are living on borrowed time, that the sand in their hourglass was running out,” said the senior official, referring to the six hostages who, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health, were shot at close range sometime around last Thursday.

“He knew there were orders to kill them if there’d be rescue attempts. He understood the significance of his orders and acted in cold blood and cruelly,” the Israeli official continued. “They all knew he is corrupted, a narcissist, a coward, but his lack of humanity was fully revealed in all its ugliness in recent months.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingIsraeli Rights Group Leader Tells UN It’s Clear Netanyahu ‘Does Not Want’ a Hostage Deal