The war in Gaza will not end this year and will continue until the beginning of 2025, Tzachi Hanegbi, national security adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said today.
Hanegbi told Israeli public broadcaster KAN that the war is expected to last another seven months.
He said that the Israeli army “now controls 75 percent of the Philadelphia corridor, and added that he believes that eventually they will control the entire corridor.
“Together with the Egyptians, we must ensure that the smuggling of arms from Egypt to Gaza is prevented,” Hanegbi said.
Israel expanded its ground offensive into Rafah yesterday, with tanks reaching the city center.
The current expansion of Israel’s assault on the city brings the Israeli military close to full control of the border area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphia Corridor, a demilitarized buffer zone that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Before the start of the Israeli military operation in Rafah on May 6, the city was home to more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians who fled their homes in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli offensive that began on October 7 last year, following an attack by Hamas.
According to local health authorities, Israel has since killed at least 36,170 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding more than 81,400 people.
Israel is accused of genocide before the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop the genocidal acts and take measures to ensure humanitarian aid is provided to civilians in Gaza, AA writes.
