BBC
Israel’s military has said it has taken control of the strategically important buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi Corridor, meaning it now controls Gaza’s entire land border.
A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 20 tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza had been found within the zone.
Egyptian TV quoted sources denying this, and said Israel was trying to justify its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The IDF has continued its offensive in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza, saying air strikes hit over 50 “terror targets” over the past day.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and three others seriously injured on Wednesday in a booby-trapped building in Rafah, the IDF said. Two other soldiers were killed in a car-ramming attack near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, it said. Security forces are searching for the driver.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday that forces had “established operational control” of the Philadelphi Corridor.
He described the area as a “lifeline” for Hamas, through which the group “regularly smuggled weapons into the Gaza Strip”.
He said troops were “investigating.. and neutralising” tunnels found in the area.
Mr Hagari later said in a briefing with reporters that he could not be sure that all of the tunnels crossed into Egypt, the New York Times reported.
The Philadelphi Corridor is a buffer zone, only about 100m (330ft) wide in parts, which runs along the Gaza side of the 13km (8-mile) border with Egypt. Gaza’s only other land border is with Israel itself.
