Politics Netanyahu in Rafah: Israel's army will stay there even longer

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has paid an unannounced visit to Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip. He used the photo opportunity with elite soldiers to reiterate his demand that the Israeli military must remain in Rafah, the border town with Egypt, even after a possible ceasefire agreement with the Islamist Hamas. The demand is seen as an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire in the indirect negotiations on the Gaza war and the release of around 120 hostages held by Hamas.

Netanyahu said in a video from the scene released by the Prime Minister's Office that he felt strengthened in his conviction that Israel's control over the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah border crossing was of crucial importance for the next phase in the fight against Hamas.

The Philadelphi Corridor is a strip about twelve kilometers long that runs along the Gaza side of the border with Egypt. Israel assumes that Hamas has supplied itself with weapons, goods and money through tunnels running under the corridor. The border crossing to Egypt has been closed since May, after Israeli troops occupied the Gaza side.

Egypt, which is mediating the indirect negotiations with Hamas together with Qatar and the USA, is strictly opposed to parts of Rafah remaining under Israeli occupation in the long term.

Part of the talks is aimed at finding a solution for controlling the border with Egypt that is acceptable to all sides. The main aim of the negotiations, which have been going on for months and have repeatedly stalled, is to bring about a ceasefire in the Gaza war and to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. However, many of the presumed 120 hostages are probably no longer alive.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organizations in southern Israel on 7 October last year.