As the IDF wholly withdrew on Sunday from the Netzarim Corridor, forces fired on Palestinians who they said entered their security perimeter in northern Gaza, reportedly killing three.
Israeli forces had already reduced their presence in Netzarim on January 27, when most troops were withdrawn from the corridor, which allowed Palestinians in southern Gaza to return north for the first time since late 2023.
Sunday, however, marked the completion date of the Netzarim withdrawal as part of phase one of the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, which went into effect on January 19 and has already seen 16 hostages released out of the 33 slated for release through March 1.
The completion of the withdrawal served largely as an additional symbolic win for Hamas, showing it’s increasingly regaining control over Gaza.
Private American security forces contractors are checking any vehicles passing through the corridor. Several times now, vehicles going north that avoided the corridor have been attacked by the Israel Air Force.
IDF presence in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor
Despite issuing a flurry of press releases about Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, the military did not comment on the Netzarim withdrawal.Reuters footage showed what appeared to be military vehicles moving away from the coast and towards the Israeli border.Since November-December 2023, the IDF has occupied the roughly 6 km.-long corridor south of Gaza City, which separates northern and southern Gaza and stretches from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.In northern Gaza, the IDF said Gazans approached military positions and the border fence near Nahal Oz despite the ceasefire deal provision granting the IDF a 700-1,100 meter buffer zone.The military said it fired warning shots to encourage the Gazans to withdraw to a safer distance. It confirmed that some had been hit, though it was unclear why they would be hit by warning fire in the air.According to Palestinian media, three people were killed. The military did not signal that it was probing the incident but rather put the onus for the incident on those individuals who approached the military positions, saying they were taking dangerous actions and must respect the ceasefire conditions and the perimeter lines.In a separate incident, Palestinian media said a woman was killed east of the Khan Yunis suburb of Al-Qarara in southern Gaza.It was unclear whether Hamas was provoking these incidents to try to keep Israel on the defensive and test its commitment to maintaining a perimeter within Gaza or if they occurred due to more random miscommunications.In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have streamed through Netzarim, returning to their hometowns in the north from the south, where they sought shelter from the war. Some described shock after seeing the destruction of communities and discovering what they said were human remains in areas where the IDF had withdrawn.
Much of northern Gaza has become a wasteland following Israel’s campaign, which included up to four different invasions of the same area in some parts of the north.After finding their homes destroyed, some Gazans have actually turned back south, while others have set up tents where their homes once stood.The IDF noted that the navy fired warning shots to prevent Gazan boats from entering maritime security zones. There has been an increase in such maritime incidents over the last couple of weeks.In the West Bank, IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and Border Police forces launched extensive overnight operations in Nur al-Shams, the military announced on Sunday.These operations were an expansion of the large northern Samaria operation, which the military began on January 21. It has been heavily focused on Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tammun.The IDF said it has successfully engaged and killed multiple terrorists and apprehended additional suspects.In a related incident in the Nur al-Shams area, soldiers killed two Palestinian women, one of them pregnant. PA health officials identified the two women as Rahaf al-Ashqar, 21, and Sundus Shalabi, 23.The PA Health Ministry said Shalabi was eight months pregnant and that her husband, Yazan Abu Shola, was gravely wounded in the incident.The IDF confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that it opened a criminal investigation into the incident.In Lebanon, where the ceasefire with Hezbollah is holding and has been extended to February 18, media reports said that overnight, an IDF airstrike in eastern Lebanon killed six people and wounded others.The IDF did not directly acknowledge the incident, but it has undertaken some strikes on concealed weapons positions – even those hidden near civilian residences.The army issued a warning on Sunday morning against Lebanese civilians approaching IDF defensive lines.Though the military was due to withdraw from southern Lebanon on January 26, the US and the Lebanese government extended the deadline for the IDF withdrawal – over Hezbollah’s objection – until February 18.Since then, there has been no discussion by Israel about whether that deadline will be honored or about how the Lebanese Army is more properly taking over old Hezbollah weapons positions.Before January 26, the IDF said the Lebanese Army failed its mandate to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, which led Israel to seek a withdrawal extension.On the Egyptian border, the IDF foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons in using a drone. When the army identified the drone crossing into Israeli territory from Egyptian territory, soldiers followed the drone. However, the IDF did not say how it noted that troops took possession of the drone and the three weapons it was carrying.Given that the drone was not shot down, it is possible that the IDF used one of many open-market technologies for jamming or hacking drones to force them to land.The IDF did not say who had sent the drone, but aside from Hamas, it could also have been criminal smugglers who have been smuggling small amounts of weapons over the Israel-Egyptian border for years.