The “yellow line” that divides Gaza under Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan is a “new border” for Israel, the country’s military chief told soldiers deployed in the territory.
The chief of the general staff, Eyal Zamir, said Israel would hold on to its current military positions. These give Israel control of more than half of Gaza, including most agricultural land and the border crossing with Egypt.
“The ‘yellow line’ is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity,” Zamir said during a visit to meet Israeli reservists in northern Gaza, where he also visited the ruins of the Palestinian towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya.
“We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defence lines,” Zamir said, according to an English-language transcript of his remarks provided by a military spokesperson.
Palestinians were forced out of this eastern portion of Gaza by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders. Almost all the surviving population, over 2 million people, are now crowded into a narrow zone of coastal sand dunes that is smaller than Washington DC.
Zamir’s commitment to keep troops in Gaza appears to contradict the ceasefire agreement signed in October, which specifies that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza.”
Trump’s 20-point plan commits the Israeli military to “progressively hand over” Palestinian territory to an international security force (ISF) until they have “withdrawn completely from Gaza”, barring a small security perimeter by the border.
The Israeli government declined to comment on whether Zamir’s statement reflected official policy. An official said Israeli forces are “deployed in Gaza in accordance with the ceasefire outline” and accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire.
The ceasefire agreement links the departure of Israeli forces to the demilitarisation of Hamas, without laying out a mechanism or a timeframe for that to happen.
A UN resolution passed last month authorised the creation of the ISF but no countries have yet committed troops to stand it up. Some have expressed interest in joining a peacekeeping force, but none want to risk their soldiers being ordered to fight Hamas, despite pressure from the Trump administration.
The Israeli army has built new concrete outposts along the “yellow line” to fortify its positions and declared it a lethal boundary, even though it is not always clearly marked and a ceasefire is in place. Soldiers have repeatedly killed Palestinians they accuse of crossing it, including young children.
Concrete bollards laid out to mark some stretches of the line have also been used to expand Israel’s military occupation of Gaza. Satellite images show that some markers have been placed hundreds of metres beyond the boundary agreed on ceasefire maps.
The US military has also been planning for the long-term partition of Gaza along the “yellow line”, with one US official describing reunification as “aspirational”.
Documents seen by the Guardian envisage the territory split into a “green zone” under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a “red zone” to be left indefinitely in ruins.
