Philadelphi corridor

About Philadelphi corridor:

• It is a ribbon of land about 14 kms in length and 100 metres wide along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
• It was designated as a demilitarised border zone after the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005 and runs from the Mediterranean to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.
• The Corridor was originally established under the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty as a 100-meter-wide buffer zone.
• The zone was later expanded beginning during the Second Intifada to be several hundred meters wide. It covers the entire 8.7-mile-long border.
• The Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is within the Philadelphi Corridor.
• In 2005, as part of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Egypt and Israel signed an agreement by which Egypt would secure the border between Egypt and Gaza to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Strip.
• Egypt maintains a one-kilometer-wide buffer zone on its side of the border, with plans to expand it.

Q1: Where is Rafah crossing?

The crossing is at the south of the Gaza Strip, a narrow slither of land that is home to 2.3 million people. It is wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.The crossing is controlled by Egypt.

Source: Opinion - To defeat Hamas, Israel must control Gaza’s border with Egypt