Israel’s blockade amounts to ‘continuation of war’
Israel’s blockade of goods entering a territory with more than two million people comes amid attempts to pressure Hamas into accepting the extension of the first phase of the ceasefire deal.
“It is essentially continuation of war by other means,” Abdullah Al-Arian, associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.
Extending the first phase “would accomplish most of Israel’s goal, which is the retrieval of its captives from Gaza, while at the same time not having to fulfil its commitments, which is the delivery of aid and, more crucially, the withdrawal of all of its troops from Gaza”, he added.
On its part, Hamas has “entered discussions with the purpose of finding at least a medium-term solution.”
Hamas repeatedly called for an immediate start to negotiations on the ceasefire’s second phase and accused Israel of “cheap and unacceptable blackmail” over its decision to halt the electricity supply.
Researchers say Egypt’s Gaza plan maintains Israeli ‘buffer zones’
Forensic Architecture, a research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, says that maps of Egypt’s proposal for rebuilding Gaza indicate a plan to maintain Israeli “buffer zones” and “security corridors” on Palestinian land.
“Our analysis indicates that this initiative — which has gained support from the European Council — includes an architectural master plan that carries forward key elements of Israel’s designed destruction of Gaza,” Goldsmiths wrote in a post on X.
This includes “buffer zones” around Gaza’s perimeter and “security corridors”, such as the Philadelphi Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt, which the Egyptian plan would turn into agricultural land, according to maps shared by Forensic Architecture.
The maps also appear to propose extending “raid routes” which run “from Israeli bases east of the Gaza perimeter fence into the Gaza strip … all the way to the sea, allowing the Israeli military the means to invade and bisect the Gaza Strip,” Forensic Architecture wrote.
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