Lawmaker in PM’s party says he won’t back government if Israel leaves Gaza-Egypt border

A lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party says he won’t support the government if it agrees to withdraw IDF troops from the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Multiple reports in recent days have indicated that Israel has been showing increasing flexibility on the matter, with negotiators agreeing to discuss alternatives to direct Israeli control of the key frontier, including electronic surveillance systems controlled by Israel aimed at preventing weapons smuggling into the Strip. Netanyahu’s office has denied the reports.

“Put simply, if we won’t be at the Philadelphi Corridor, we won’t be in the State of Israel,” Likud MK Moshe Saada tells Radio 103FM, describing the border strip as Hamas’s “oxygen pipe.”

“Leaving the Philadelphi Corridor is an existential threat to the Jewish nation’s life in the Land of Israel. This is one of the red lines because unfortunately, it has been written in blood,” he says.

Asked if he will resign if such a withdrawal goes ahead, Saada says: “I won’t support the government. I have told this to the prime minister in the past and I think he agrees with me.”