The Biden-Harris administration said Tuesday that it opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to hold onto the Gaza-Egypt border — known as the Philadelphi Corridor — to ensure weapons cannot be smuggled into Gaza.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday that the U.S. opposed any long-term Israeli presence in Gaza. He also said that Israel had agreed to a U.S. “bridging” proposal last month that would have required the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to withdraw from “densely populated areas,” which Miller said “includes the Philadelphi Corridor.”
From the State Department transcript:
We’ve made very clear what we believe about the possibility of an ongoing Israeli presence in Gaza, and that’s that we are opposed to it.
I will also say that in the bridging proposal that we put forward, that the Government of Israel agreed to, it did include the removal of the IDF from densely populated areas. That includes the Philadelphi Corridor. Now, there – as I said, there are a number of details that require further negotiation to conclude how the parties will live up to their commitments under the agreement. I’m not going to negotiate on those in public, but that’s what we continue to discuss with the parties.
It remains unclear whether Israel agreed to withdraw from some of the Phildelphi Corridor, or all of it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a length presentation on Monday about why he believed Israel needed to hold onto the Philadelphi corridor to prevent a resurgence of Hamas.
Israeli opposition figures delivered rebuttals on Tuesday in which they largely accepted his argument, but said that Israel could return to the Philadelphi Corridor after withdrawing from it, and questioned his conduct of the war and hostage negotiations generally.
Some of Netanyahu’s critics say that his stance on the Philadelphi Corridor provoked Hamas to murder six hostages last week, though evidence suggests Hamas was primarily motivated by the desire to prevent the hostages’ rescue.
Hamas has accused Israel of changing its demands for a hostage deal but it has never accepted any deal on the table.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.