What does Israel’s control of Rafah mean for the future of the Gaza Strip?

For more than two weeks, the Israeli occupation army has been engaged in a multi-front ground operation, starting from Salah Al-Din Street — formerly known as the Netzarim Axis — in the centre of the Gaza Strip, expanding to encompass the entire city of Rafah and the eastern part of Khan Yunis in the south, before extending to the Shujaya district east of Gaza City, as well as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the north and the northern coastal strip of the territory.

In a repeat of what the Israeli occupation army did in the north of the Gaza Strip in October last year under what was known as the “Generals’ Plan”, Haaretz has revealed the occupation army’s efforts to annex the city of Rafah — which constitutes one-fifth of the land in Gaza — to the buffer zone from which Palestinians are prohibited.

The Israeli newspaper said that the buffer zone being prepared by the occupation army will cover 75 square kilometres, located between the Philadelphi and Morag axes, and includes Rafah city and its neighbouring districts in the southern part of the Palestinian territory. In effect, it means the total annihilation of any Palestinian existence of the city, and probably the existence of the city itself.

Haaretz added that with the annexation of Rafah and its surrounding neighbourhoods, the occupation army will not allow Palestinian civilians to return to the city.

Indeed, it is “considering the demolition of all buildings in Rafah.”

Annexing a city the size of Rafah to Israel’s new buffer zone, said the newspaper, “will turn the Gaza Strip into an enclave within Israeli territory, distancing it from the Egyptian border.” It based this view on Israeli military sources, noting that the proposed plan for Rafah and its surrounding areas is a “repeat of what was done in the north of the Gaza Strip.”

The occupation army announced the expansion of its ground operation in the south of the Gaza Strip on 29 March in order to enlarge the buffer security zone it described as the “defensive security area”, while warning Palestinians in Rafah to evacuate immediately. Days later, the occupation forces began a wide-scale incursion into the city of Rafah as part of its ongoing military operation in the southern Gaza Strip, deploying the 36th Combat Division to the area.

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Haaretz viewed the talk about annexing Rafah to the buffer zone as stemming from a decision by the political leadership to renew the war on the Gaza Strip in March. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would control large parts of the Gaza Strip.

“The army now realises that Israel is unlikely to receive international support for a prolonged operation in the Gaza Strip, even from the United States, and that threats made by members of the government to block humanitarian aid are unlikely to be translated into actual policy,” said Haaretz. “Therefore, the army is preparing to focus its campaign on areas it believes will put pressure on the Hamas leadership.”

These claims come despite Tel Aviv’s failure to impose its control fully over areas in the northern Gaza Strip, where it tried for months to evacuate residents from Beit Lahia and Jabalia in the hope of establishing a wider buffer zone to separate its settlements from the Strip.

In this context, Haaretz quoted Israeli soldiers criticising Tel Aviv’s policies throughout the course of the war. “The army has kept repeating the same messages since the beginning of the war, without facing reality… the military operations are taking us back to square one, without anyone knowing how long this will last, what the objective of the operation is, or what has been achieved operationally,” said reserve officers and soldiers alike.

This revelation by Haaretz came just days after the Israeli occupation army announced the start of military operations in what is known as the Morag Axis in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian warnings followed, asserting that this move aims to “sustain the occupation of Gaza and divide it,” as the axis separates the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south of the Palestinian territory.

The axis is named after an Israeli settlement that was located in the Gaza Strip before the occupation withdrew its settlers in 2005. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted photos on social media, claiming that they showed “the initial operations carried out by the 36th Division forces in the Morag Axis.”

Israeli control over Rafah city would mean its total destruction and “the non-existence of Palestine,” said one military strategy expert.

Brigadier General Elias Hanna told Al Jazeera that the map published by Haaretz is not new and that what it represents is merely a tactical development serving the Israeli occupation’s strategic goal, which is related to the so-called “Generals’ Plan” aimed at controlling the north of the Gaza Strip by displacing its residents to the south, then imposing a complete siege on the north.

He explained that the buffer zone was between 700 and 1,100 metres wide at five points, then becomes around 100 metres wide, with systematic demolitions carried out by occupation forces during their continued assault on various areas of the Palestinian territory.

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Hanna pointed out that Netanyahu declared previously that the Philadelphi Axis is a matter of life or death due to his belief in the presence of tunnels across the border into Egypt. He noted that the Jerusalem Post had claimed that only 25 per cent of Gaza’s tunnels have been destroyed.

He also highlighted statements by Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, in which they said that they would occupy Gaza if Hamas did not release the Israeli captives, statements that, according to Hanna, fall within the occupation’s broader plan to control the Strip. He confirmed previously that the focus by the occupation army on Shujaya, Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun is tactical within a broader strategy aimed at fragmenting the Gaza Strip and isolating civilians from the resistance groups.

Regarding the impact of the Israeli operations in Rafah on the Egyptian border, Hanna explained that, given Israel’s control of the Rafah border crossing, Gaza is completely isolated from Egypt, meaning that a new agreement is needed between the two sides. He questioned whether Egypt will accept the current situation or not.

At least 65 per cent of the Gaza Strip has now been turned into either “buffer zones” within which Palestinians are banned, or areas under evacuation warnings, according to a UN report published by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on 4 April. OCHA explained that since 18 March, the occupation army has issued 13 evacuation orders, placing about 126.6 square kilometres — 35 per cent — of the Gaza Strip under active forced displacement orders.

The report also stated that, in addition to this area, the occupation authorities requested the UN to coordinate movement into the prohibited zone along the Gaza Strip, and through the Wadi Gaza area, the so-called Netzarim Axis.

The occupation army established the axis in early November 2023 at the start of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, to isolate Gaza City and the Northern Governorates from the central and southern areas. It extends from the easternmost borders of the Gaza Strip to the coast, intersecting with the main Salah Al-Din road, before the army withdrew from it in February as part of the first phase of a ceasefire agreement with Palestinian factions, an agreement that Israel later reneged on.

OCHA’s report indicated that these areas collectively represent 65 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s area.

As of 18 March, when the occupation authorities unilaterally violated the ceasefire agreement, the “buffer zones” as designated by the occupation army, represented about 17 per cent of the Gaza Strip.

At the beginning of March, the first phase of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Hamas and Israel — effective since 19 January, 2025 — came to an end because the occupation state refused to go into the second phase, under which it had already been agreed that it would withdraw its troops from Gaza. It reneged on the start of the second phase, apparently, in response to pressure from extremists in the ruling coalition.

With full US support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since 7 October, 2023. It has killed at least 51,000 Palestinians and wounded 116,500 more, with 11,000 missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by the occupation state. Most of the Palestinian casualties are children and women. More than 2 million Palestinians have been displaced at least once during the same period.

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