Report suggests IDF logistics road in north Gaza may become new corridor, buffer zone
Israel says path cutting through urban areas is temporary, aimed at providing supplies and cutting area off from Gaza City terror operatives

The Washington Post published footage Tuesday showing progress on a road Israel has been carving out through urban parts of northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, dividing Gaza City from the cities to its north, in what the military has said is a temporary logistics and separation road.
The outlet cited a researcher who argued that the pattern of construction and the destruction of buildings near the new east-west road resemble the process of establishing the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border in the south.
It cited William Goodhind, an analyst at the Contested Ground military research project, as speculating that Israel may be establishing a third corridor that bisects Gaza from the Israeli border in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, as part of a plan to create a buffer zone in Gaza’s far north that will stay under Israeli military rule.
The road “effectively segments Gaza so that more systematic clearance operations can begin while a de facto border locks down movement to the south,” he claimed.
Rejecting that notion, former IDF Gaza division deputy commander Brig. Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi told the Post that the pathway is aimed at providing “logistics channels” and doesn’t represent a “long-term policy.”
Similarly, the IDF said in early November that northern Gaza’s towns had been disconnected from Gaza City amid the ongoing operation, whose goal the army said was to prevent Hamas operatives from escaping or, alternatively, from bringing in reinforcements from Gaza City, where thousands of terror operatives were thought to be.
The BBC has also previously reported on the road under construction.
The establishment of this corridor, the clearing of tracts of land on either side of it and the construction of square-shaped protected outposts resemble the IDF’s transformation of the Netzarim Corridor, a strategic Israeli military zone in the center of Gaza, analysts said. pic.twitter.com/lXZsgYdIhh
— Imogen Piper (@imogen_piper) December 23, 2024
The Post story also focused on testimonies of residents of northern Gaza who have been evacuated from the area amid the renewed operation, which has demolished most of the buildings there and prompted an outcry from international bodies and groups.
Israel says much of the destruction in Gaza is a result of Hamas using the Strip’s infrastructure for terror purposes, but the widespread destruction has fueled accusations of excessive force and collective punishment.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been staying in an Israel-designated humanitarian zone near the coast in southern Gaza. The IDF estimates that only thousands of people remain in the northern areas where it is currently operating. Israel denies the displacement is permanent or that it is planning to establish an open-ended military rule, though some in the far-right flank of the government have been calling for this.
On Monday, Channel 12 aired satellite footage from Hebrew University GIS specialist Adi Ben Nun that it said showed 100 percent of the 19,000 buildings in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia had been destroyed or damaged.
Similar footage from July — before the IDF launched its third counter-terrorism operation in the city since the start of the war — showed 54% of Jabalia’s buildings hit, the network said.
The satellite footage also indicated that the IDF has completed demolishing all 4,000 buildings in Gaza that were within one kilometer of the border with Israel. Channel 12 said the military believes it has completed its goal of creating a buffer zone in that border area.

Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, when the terror group invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 391. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 45,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.