The Israeli occupation military has completed its withdrawal from Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor – a requirement under phase one of the ceasefire deal between ‘Israel’ and Hamas agreed last month.
“Israeli forces have dismantled their positions and military posts and completely withdrawn their tanks from the Netzarim Corridor on Salaheddin Road, allowing vehicles to pass freely in both directions,” a Hamas official said on Sunday, referring to Salah al-Din Street.
The so-called Netzarim Corridor refers to a strip of land that cut off northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip. According to the ceasefire agreement, the deadline for withdrawal was February 9.
The full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the corridor took place a day after Hamas and ‘Israel’ conducted their fifth captive-prisoner swap, which saw the Palestinian group release three Israeli captives in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
In a statement, Hamas said Israel’s complete withdrawal from the corridor signals a “continuation of the failure of the goals of the war of extermination against the Palestinian people”.
It said the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes and the continuation of the exchange of captives and prisoners refutes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “lie” about achieving victory in the 15-month war on the enclave.
“Gaza will remain a land liberated by the hands of its people and its fighters, and forbidden to the occupying invaders and any external force,” it said.
Israel created the corridor at the beginning of its war on Gaza. It is a closed-off military zone that stretches from Israeli settlements boundary with Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea and is about 6km (3.7 miles) wide.
More than half a million Palestinians were obliged by the Zionist occupation forces to depart norther Gaza in the first month of the war under the pretext of having safer areas in southern Gaza; however, the Israeli massacres chased them across the Strip.
Source: Al-Manar English Website
