IDF says it has captured Gaza’s Morag Corridor, cutting off Rafah from Khan Younis

The IDF announces that it has completed capturing the Morag Corridor in the southern Gaza Strip, cutting off the city of Rafah from Khan Younis.

Rafah is now completely surrounded by the military, with the 36th Division holding the Morag Corridor, and the Gaza Division operating in the Philadelphi Corridor, the Egypt-Gaza border area.

The 36th Division’s 188th Armored Brigade had pushed into the Morag Corridor from the northwest, while the division’s Golani Infantry Brigade entered from the border in the southeast. Overnight, the two units joined up.

Engineering forces are now constructing a road along the corridor, similar to the other corridors in Gaza captured by the IDF during the war.

The military will now operate inside areas of Rafah that it has not been in yet to defeat the remaining Hamas forces there. The IDF issued evacuation warnings for civilians in Rafah nearly two weeks ago.

Eventually, the IDF’s buffer zone in southern Gaza will stretch from the Egyptian border to the outskirts of Khan Younis — more than 5 kilometers away — and include the entire city of Rafah within it — around 20% of the Strip.

The IDF’s buffer zone elsewhere on the border with Gaza has also been expanded from several hundred meters to around 2 kilometers in most areas.

Over the past week and a half, during operations in the Morag Corridor area, the IDF says it has eliminated dozens of terror operatives and destroyed Hamas infrastructure, including tunnels.