Netanyahu says Israeli forces won’t leave Philadelphi corridor until guarantee it’s not used as Hamas ‘supply line’
Israel will not remove its troops from a narrow strip of land on the Gaza side of the border with Egypt until there is a guarantee it can never be used as a supply line for Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
The area of scrubland and sand dunes, known as the Philadelphi corridor, was seized by his forces in May and has become a key obstacle in talks to try to secure a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister has insisted on retaining control of the corridor, where his troops have uncovered dozens of tunnels which officials say have been used to supply Hamas with weapons and ammunition.
He told foreign media that his country’s three “war goals”: destroying Hamas, releasing all hostages and ensuring Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel, could not be achieved without control of the corridor.
Mr Netanyahu repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of a truce deal, expected to last 42 days, saying international pressure would make it effectively impossible to return.
For a permanent ceasefire to be agreed upon after that, Israel would need guarantees that whoever ran postwar Gaza would be able to prevent the corridor from being used as a route for smuggling weapons and supplies for Hamas.
The message was similar to one Mr Netanyahu presented to Israeli media on Tuesday and also one which Ron Dermer, a close aide to the prime minister and Israeli minister of strategic affairs, gave in an interview with Sky News’ Yalda Hakim on Wednesday.
Mr Dermer said Hamas’s massacre in southern Israel on 7 October last year “couldn’t have happened” if the corridor had been closed and if Israel gave up control it would put the country at risk of repeated attacks.
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Is Israel building a new Gaza corridor?
“If you want to release the hostages, you have got to control the corridor,” Mr Netanyahu said, explaining his position in detail.
“Gaza must be demilitarised and this can only happen if the Philadelphi corridor remains under firm control and is not a supply line.”
He also hit out at international pressure to “end the war” and accept a hostage deal with Hamas – which US, Qatari, and Egyptian negotiators have been working to secure for months.
What is the Philadelphi corridor?
The Philadelphi corridor is a strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt, including the Rafah crossing.
Spanning nine miles (14km) in length and 100 metres wide it was introduced as a demilitarised border zone after the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005.
Before 2005, a 1979 treaty with Egypt allowed it to have a limited number of troops in the corridor but no heavy armour.
After 2005 it became the responsibility of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
Hundreds of Egyptian police were stationed there to prevent weapons smuggling, until Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
In May 2024, it was seized by Israel as its Gaza ground offensive pushed into Rafah.
However, Egypt continues to be against a major Israeli military presence on the border.
“People said ‘If you stay, this will kill the deal’, but such a deal will kill us,” Mr Netanyahu stated.
“If we leave there will not be any pressure points and we won’t get the hostages, the real obstacle to getting a deal is Hamas.”
If agreed, a deal would see the release of the remaining 101 hostages who have been held since the 7 October attack, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage.
The prime minister says a hostage deal without Israeli troops on the corridor will ‘kill’ Israel
Both sides previously agreed, in principle, to a plan announced by US President Joe Biden on 31 May, but Hamas has since proposed amendments and Israel has suggested clarifications – leading to each side accusing the other of trying to scupper the deal.
Following the latest negotiations last month, mediators said they had presented a proposal to both parties, which they hope will build on areas of agreement and bridge any remaining gaps.
‘I am sorry’
Mr Netanyahu also faces a great deal of internal pressure to agree a deal.
Mass protests in Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have taken place over the past four days, sparked by the recovery of the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Saturday. Israel says the hostages were shot dead by Hamas.
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‘Hostages came back as corpses’
Addressing the loved ones of the six, Mr Netanyahu said he had visited one of the families and had spoken to others.
He explained: “I said to them that I am sorry.”
“I apologised that we didn’t get them out. We worked so hard to get them, we were close, but we didn’t,” he said.
Gil Dickmann, the cousin of Carmel Gat, one of the hostages found on the weekend, told The World with Yalda Hakim he thought the Israeli government were “all losers”.
“They lost Carmel’s life. They knew that her life was in danger. They knew, and we warned them… that they could be murdered at any moment and they decided… that they are going to say no to a deal that would save her life,” he said.
“They decided to sacrifice the lives of Israeli citizens – Israeli people who were taken from their beds on 7 October under the open eye of Ron Dermer [minister of strategic affairs] and Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They decided to sacrifice Carmel and all the other hostages and now they have been executed.”
Despite the backlash and mass gatherings of demonstrators, Mr Netanyahu said the people of Israel were “overwhelmingly united” and committed to achieving its goals in Gaza.
Protesters at a rally in Tel Aviv on Monday to show support for the hostages. Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
According to the territory’s health ministry, more than 40,800 Palestinians have been killed in a retaliatory offensive by Israel for the 7 October attack.
More than 30 Palestinians have also been killed since Israel launched a major operation in different areas of the occupied West Bank, involving hundreds of soldiers and armoured vehicles.
It claimed the offensive was to thwart Iranian-backed militant groups preparing attacks on Israeli civilians.
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and should only be hosted by countries who are trying to give up fossil fuels, veterans of the process have said.
An open letter to the United Nations, signed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, made a dramatic intervention in the 29th COP climate summit, under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Frustration over petrostate hosts – following last year’s summit in UAE – as well as the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, prohibitive costs, and slow progress have been mounting in recent years.
The letter acknowledges the strides COPs have made on ramping up climate policies.
“But it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said.
“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”
The letter’s 22 signatories also include former Ireland President Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate body (UNFCCC) that runs the annual COP summits.
It called for the process to be streamlined and for countries to be held accountable for their promises.
Sky News analysis has found only “marginal” progress has been made since the “historic” pledge from COP28 last year to transition away from fossil fuels.
Pic: AP Photo/Peter Dejong
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The letter also called for “strict eligibility criteria” for host countries to exclude those “who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.
This year’s host country, petrostate Azerbaijan, has been engulfed in controversy.
Its authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev used his opening address to criticise western hypocrisy and praise oil and gas as a “gift” from God. His criticism of France, with whom relations have long been tense, drove the French minister to cancel a trip to the summit.
While the government and its COP team run separate operations, host countries are supposed to smooth over disagreements and find consensus between the almost 200 countries gathered.
COP presidencies are also nominating themselves to be climate leaders and throwing their own countries under the spotlight.
Azerbaijan is a small developing country that relies significantly on oil and gas revenues. But it has made slow progress on building out clean power – getting just 1.5% of its energy from clean sources – and led a harsh crackdown on critics in the run up to the COP.
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Azerbaijan team ‘optimistic’ about talks
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, its lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev was unable to say whether Azerbaijan preferred to extract all its oil and gas or seek another, cleaner economic pathway – hard though that would be.
In a news conference yesterday, Mr Rafiyev said the president had been “quite clear” and he would not comment further.
“We have opened our doors to everybody,” he added.
Some diplomats here have hinted that Azerbaijan’s presidency team mean well but might be a little out of their depth. They have never been out in front at previous COPs, but they also only had a year to prepare for their turn hosting the mighty summit.
“My sense of this is that they’re a little underprepared, a little overwhelmed and a little bit short,” said one, speaking anonymously, as is customary for diplomats trying to maintain good relations.
“But I’m not sure that that’s politics. It might just be bandwidth and preparation and things like that.”
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Different regions in the world take turns to host a COP. This year it was up to Eastern Europe, but the selection process took longer than usual due to tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and between Azerbaijan and rival Armenia.
Achim Steiner of the UN Development Programme, called it “troubling” that some countries face questions over their host roles.
“Are there countries that are by definition good hosts and others are bad hosts?” he asked.
“In the United Nations, we maintain the principle of every nation, first of all, should have a right to be heard.
“Labels are not always the fairest way of describing a nation. Some of the largest oil producers have hosted this COP in the past, and seemingly this seemed to be a perfectly acceptable phenomenon.”
COP stands for “conference of the parties” and refers to countries (“parties”) who have signed the underlying climate treaty.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 team and the UN’s climate body have been contacted with a request to comment.
World
Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners
A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.
The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.
Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.
It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.
The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.
Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.
Relatives of miners and community members wait at the mine shaft. Pic: AP
A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.
It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.
“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.
An aerial view of a mineshaft. Pic: AP
Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.
In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.
Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.
Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.
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Relatives of miners and community members wait near the mine shaft. Pic: AP
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The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.
Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.
Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.
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