Ministers back Netanyahu’s demand for IDF to stay in Philadelphi Corridor in any deal
Gallant votes against, Ben Gvir abstains, in vote that underlines PM’s stance after maps of planned IDF presence already shown to Hamas and mediators; demand has impeded talks’ progress
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The security cabinet voted Thursday to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal, a senior official in the premier’s office said.
The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps that the Israel Defense Forces has drawn up, showing how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor. The maps have already been adopted by the US, the official said, apparently referencing the “bridging proposal” that the White House submitted earlier this month.
The eight-to-one vote, with one abstention, underlined Israel’s already declared stance on the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor, since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and mediators Egypt, the US and Qatar.
Bucking Israel’s security establishment, Netanyahu presented the continued IDF deployment in the Philadelphi Corridor as a new demand in the hostage negotiations last month, slowing the talks, which had picked up momentum after Hamas agreed to cave on its main demand for Israel to agree up-front to a permanent ceasefire.
In the Thursday night security cabinet meeting, eight ministers voted in favor of Netanyahu’s position, while only Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against it, representing the security apparatus’s position.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir cast the vote’s lone abstention. A source close to Ben Gvir was cited by Hebrew media as explaining this was because the proposal included a gradual drop in the number of soldiers in case of a deal, while he supports maintaining full military presence at the corridor and in all of Gaza.
The vote drew an outraged reaction from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of many of the remaining 107 hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.
“After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal,” the Forum said. “Not a day goes by in which Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages.”
But the Tikva Forum, which represents some hawkish hostage relatives, praised the decision and said IDF presence at Philadelphi “creates highly significant pressure on Hamas that could help return all the hostages home.”
Netanyahu has insisted that remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor is essential for preventing continued weapons smuggling, which would allow for the revival of Hamas after the war. This is despite the demand not featuring in a previous Israeli proposal issued on May 27.
The premier believes control of the border zone is key to pressuring Hamas into signing a deal, Republican US Senator Joni Ernst, who met Netanyahu this week as she led a US congressional delegation to the Middle East, told Axios. She added she found it unlikely that Israel would soon agree to withdraw its troops from there.
The US has urged Israel to compromise on the issue, while also offering a bridging proposal that allows for a limited number of soldiers to remain in the corridor, which both Hamas and mediator Egypt have to date opposed, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel earlier this week.
According to the officials, the bridging proposal over-catered to Israel’s demands and it has since been adapted.
The security establishment has pushed the government for more flexibility on the Philadelphi issue, fearing Netanyahu’s stance will further drag out the talks, risking the lives of the hostages, and arguing that Israel would be able to return to the corridor if need be.
Channel 12 news reported Thursday that at the meeting in which the vote was eventually held, Gallant presented a document presenting the security establishment’s opinion that without a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, Israel faced “imminent deterioration into a multifront war.”
According to the senior Prime Minister’s Office official who reported the vote’s results, Netanyahu told ministers during the meeting that Hamas had been able to carry out its October 7 onslaught because Israel didn’t have control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu stressed that by maintaining control over the corridor, Israel will prevent another attack of that nature from unfolding since Hamas won’t be able to re-arm itself.
He also argued that this stance will make a hostage deal more likely because Hamas will see that it has no other choice but to compromise on this issue, just as it did when it agreed to forgo its demand for a permanent end to the war.
In the proposal Hamas submitted earlier this month, the terror group agreed to only have a six-week ceasefire, during which the sides would negotiate the terms of subsequent phases. While the offer envisions the mediators keeping Israel and Hamas at the table, it does appear to provide Israel with the ability to resume fighting if Hamas is deemed to be violating the terms of the deal and not negotiating in good faith.
Netanyahu at the Thursday night meeting assailed the defense establishment, claiming it had wrongly supported Israel’s so-called Disengagement from Gaza in 2005 — which Netanyahu himself helped pass — as well as the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
“Security officials claimed that they would know how to deal with the first rocket [from Gaza], but this did not happen after Hamas began raining fire on Israel,” Netanyahu told the ministers, according to the statement from an official in his office. Hamas had also been launching rockets at Israel before the Disengagement.
“Security officials also believed that they would know how to deal with the withdrawal from Lebanon and, before that, with the import of terrorist elements into Judea and Samaria as part of the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu said, using the West Bank’s Biblical name. “These estimates were also wrong.”
Separately, during Thursday night’s meeting, the security cabinet was presented with the preliminary results of an IDF review that found that most of the dozens of hostages who are no longer alive were killed during the first six months of the war, closer to the October 7 onslaught, and not in recent months, the Israeli official says.
That comes amid an uproar from hostage families, who frequently claim that more of their loved ones could have been brought back alive had the negotiations not dragged on for as long as they have. Earlier this month, six hostages — who had been alive until earlier this year — were returned to Israel in body bags.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
