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Why is Israel Demanding Control Over 2 Gaza Corridors in the Cease-Fire Talks?

FILE - A Palestinian flag is seen with the background of a section of the wall in the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza, on the background, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Sunday, July 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - A Palestinian flag is seen with the background of a section of the wall in the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza, on the background, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Sunday, July 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
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Why is Israel Demanding Control Over 2 Gaza Corridors in the Cease-Fire Talks?

FILE - A Palestinian flag is seen with the background of a section of the wall in the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza, on the background, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Sunday, July 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - A Palestinian flag is seen with the background of a section of the wall in the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza, on the background, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Sunday, July 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)

Israel's demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old war, freeing scores of hostages and preventing an even wider conflict.
Officials close to the negotiations have said Israel wants to maintain a military presence in a narrow buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border it calls the Philadelphi corridor and in an area it carved out that cuts off northern Gaza from the south, known as the Netzarim corridor.
It's unclear if Israeli control of these corridors is included in a US-backed proposal that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Hamas to accept to break an impasse in cease-fire talks. Blinken, who is back in the region this week, said Monday that Israel had agreed to the proposal without saying what it entails.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says control of the Egyptian border area is needed to prevent Hamas from replenishing its arsenal through smuggling tunnels and that Israel needs a "mechanism" to prevent militants from returning to the north, which has been largely isolated since October.
Hamas has rejected those demands, which were only made public in recent weeks. There was no mention of Israel retaining control of the corridors in earlier drafts of an evolving cease-fire proposal seen by The Associated Press.
Hamas says any lasting Israeli presence in Gaza would amount to military occupation. Egypt, which has served as a key mediator in the monthslong talks, is also staunchly opposed to an Israeli presence on the other side of its border with Gaza.
What are the corridors and why does Israel want them? The Philadelphi corridor is a narrow strip — about 100 meters (yards) wide in parts — running the 14-kilometer (8.6-mile) length of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt. It includes the Rafah Crossing, which until May was Gaza's only outlet to the outside world not controlled by Israel.
Israel says Hamas used a vast network of tunnels beneath the border to import arms, allowing it to build up the military machine it used in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The military says it has found and destroyed dozens of tunnels since seizing the corridor in May.
Egypt rejects those allegations, saying it destroyed hundreds of tunnels on its side of the border years ago and set up a military buffer zone of its own that prevents smuggling.
The roughly 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim Corridor runs from the Israeli border to the coast just south of Gaza City, severing the territory's largest metropolitan area and the rest of the north from the south.
Hamas has demanded that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled the north be allowed to return to their homes. Israel has agreed to their return but wants to ensure they are not armed.
Why are Hamas and Egypt opposed to Israeli control? Israeli control over either corridor would require closed roads, fences, guard towers and other military installations. Checkpoints are among the most visible manifestations of Israel's open-ended military rule over the West Bank, and over Gaza prior to its 2005 withdrawal.
Israel says such checkpoints are needed for security, but Palestinians view them as a humiliating infringement on their daily life. They would also be seen by many Palestinians as a prelude to a lasting military occupation and the return of Jewish settlements — something Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners have openly called for.
Hamas has demanded a total Israeli withdrawal and accuses Netanyahu of setting new conditions in order to sabotage the talks.
Egypt says Israel’s operations along the border threaten the landmark 1979 peace treaty between the two countries. It has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing until Israel returns the Gaza side to Palestinian control.
Are these new demands by Israel? Israel insists they are not, referring to them as "clarifications" to an earlier proposal endorsed by President Joe Biden in a May 31 speech and by the UN Security Council in a rare cease-fire resolution. Israel also accuses Hamas of making new demands since then that it cannot accept.
But neither the speech nor the Security Council resolution made any reference to Israel's demands regarding the corridors — which were only made public in recent weeks — and both referred to a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. The US has also said it is against any reoccupation of Gaza or reduction of its territory.
Previous written drafts of the cease-fire proposal stipulate an initial Israeli withdrawal from populated and central areas during the first phase of the agreement, when the most vulnerable hostages would be freed and displaced Palestinians allowed to return to the north.
During the second phase, the specifics of which would be negotiated during the first, Israeli forces would withdraw completely and Hamas would release all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers.
The most recent drafts of the proposal — including one that Hamas approved in principle on July 2 — contain language specifying that displaced residents returning in the first phase must not carry weapons. But they do not specify a mechanism for searching them.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt, which have spent months trying to broker an agreement, have not weighed in publicly on Israel's demands regarding the corridors.
An Israeli delegation held talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday focused on the Philadelphi corridor but did not achieve a breakthrough, according to an Egyptian official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.
What happens if the talks fail? Failure to reach a cease-fire deal would prolong a war in which Israel's offensive has already killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents and destroyed much of the impoverished territory.
Palestinian militants are still holding some 110 hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that started the war, in which they killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel has only rescued seven hostages through military operations. Around a third of the 110 are already dead, according to Israeli authorities, and the rest are at risk as the war grinds on.
A cease-fire deal also offers the best chance of averting — or at least delaying — an Iranian or Hezbollah strike on Israel over last month's targeted killing of a Hezbollah commander in Beirut and a Hamas leader in Tehran.
Israel has vowed to respond to any attack, and the United States has rushed military assets to the region, raising the prospect of an even wider and more devastating war.

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Rafik Hariri after First Meeting with Bashar Assad: I Became More Afraid for Syria, Not Lebanon

Slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (AFP)
Slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (AFP)
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Rafik Hariri after First Meeting with Bashar Assad: I Became More Afraid for Syria, Not Lebanon

Slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (AFP)
Slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (AFP)

Asharq Al-Awsat is publishing a series of excerpts from a new book by former Lebanese MP Bassem al-Sabeh in which he recalls the thorny relationship between slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and members of the ruling elite in Syria. “Lebanon in the Shadows of Hell: from the Taif Accord to Hariri’s Assassination” is published by All Prints Distributors & Publishers.

Sabeh worked as an aide to Hariri until his killing in February 2005. He served as lawmaker from 1992 to 2009. He was also appointed information minister in Hariri’s government between 1996 and 1998. Sabeh is a member of Hariri’s Mustaqbal Movement and a pillar of the March 14 movement that opposed Syria’s political and security hegemony over Lebanon.

Hariri’s ties with the Syrian leadership extended to around 25 years. In the early 1980s, he acted as an envoy to Saudi King Fahad bin Abdulaziz and accompanied Prince Badr bin Sultan’s diplomatic visits when it came to Arab efforts to end the Lebanese civil war.

MP Bassem al-Sabeh with PM Hariri. (AFP)

At the time, Lebanon and Syria’s relationship revolved around interests and political and personal calculations of Syrian officials, whom Syrian President Hafze al-Assad had given permission to interfere in Lebanese affairs. Hariri had to maneuver around these interests as he attempted to forge ties with the Syrian leadership.

Hariri was in direct contact with Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, army commander Hikmat al-Shehabi, head of Syria's security apparatus in Lebanon Ghazi Kanaan, and military intelligence officer Rustom Ghazaleh. Bashar al-Assad would join the list in the final years of his father, Hafez’s, life.

Other notable Syrian figures at the time included Bassel al-Assad, Bashar’s older brother, who died in a car crash in 1994. He was being groomed to succeed his father as president. Other figures included Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s younger brother, military officer Assef Shawkat, intelligence officer Ali Mamlouk, Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, foreign minister Walid al-Muallem and his predecessor Farouk al-Sharaa.

Hariri’s ties with Hafez emerged and developed and were tested under the umbrella of Saudi-Syrian relations. They were ruled by conditions that bolstered mutual trust and respect between them. The good relations did not extend to any of Hafez’s three sons. Rather, they were marked by a lot of mistrust and suspicion that ultimately left grave damage to Lebanese-Syrian ties that culminated in United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 and left Lebanon and Syria revolving in a cycle of mutual spite.

Bassel al-Assad.

Before Bashar entered the picture, Hafez was grooming his eldest son, Bassel, to become president. He was the undisputed heir to the presidency. He was Syria’s number one equestrian champion and excelled at his studies at the Soviet Military Academies. He rose up the ranks to become commander of the republican guard.

Bashar, meanwhile, earned his medical degree from Syria before heading to London for postgraduate training in ophthalmology. He was summoned back to Damascus in 1994 after Bassel’s death. He was groomed to become Hafez’s heir. Maher was seen as too hardline to succeed Bassel. He nevertheless is part of the ruling elite, and has been the number two in the regime after he took over the republican guard and Fourth Brigade.

I attended Bassel’s funeral in Syria’s al-Qardaha. In attendance were Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, senior Syrian officials and others. Unlike other officials, Hariri cried at the funeral. I asked him about it later, knowing that he had never met Bassel and shared no ties with him. He replied: “At that moment, I recalled my son Hussam [who passed away in a car accident in the US in the late 1980s]. There is no harder experience than that for a father. God help President Assad.”

Bassel, Bashar and Maher played various roles in influencing Hariri’s political role. Other Syrian officials who also played a similar part included Kanaan, in his capacity as head of the Syrian security apparatus in Lebanon, Mohammed Nassif, who is known for his loyalty to the Assad family, and Shawkat, Hafez’s son-in-law who rose to prominence after Bassel’s death.

Hariri did try to achieve some rapprochement with Bassel in the early 1990s, but Hafez stood in his war. Hariri would try to again forge ties with his other son, Bashar in the late 1990s.

At the time, relations between the two men were very frosty after Lebanese army commander and later President Emile Lahoud was chosen as Syria’s number one man in Lebanon. Lahoud was elected president in 1998 and was given free rein by Syria in acting out in spite against Hariri and launching defamation campaigns against his policies soon after his term as PM ended.

Hariri sought to break the campaign launched against him by Lahoud - with the backing of Kanaan and Ghazaleh. He believed it was necessary to tackle the situation head-on by heading to the source of the problem and tackling the possible means to rectify the relationship.

President Emile Lahoud and PM Hariri. (AFP)

He made an unannounced visit to Damascus to meet with Hafez. It was 1999 and Hafez would die the following year. Hariri realized during that meeting that Hafez had finished paving the way for Bashar to succeed him.

Hafez advised Hariri to be open with Bashar and speak with him directly about Lebanon and ties with Syria. “Bashar has good relations with Lahoud and he can address the situation,” he quoted Hafez as saying. Hariri agreed to the suggestion without hesitation. In turn, Hafez pledged to arrange a meeting with his son. At that moment, Hariri realized that his friend Khaddam’s role in the regime had been diminished and that he needed to speak directly with Bashar to curry favor with Damascus.

Hariri summoned me to his Qoreitem residence in Beirut in late September 1999. He told me that we were headed to Damascus on an unannounced visit. I was not informed who we will be meeting even as the convoy sped to the border. “Are you going to meet the president?” I asked. “Someone more important than him. I will be meeting with Bashar. This is what the old man [Hafez] wants. There is a need to open a new chapter,” replied Hariri. “The father’s health is declining and the young man will come to power. I am being asked to help him. This is the first time I head to Damascus without meeting Khaddam. At any rate, I don’t want him to know now. I’ll tell him later.”

President Hafez al-Assad and PM Rafik al-Hariri during a meeting. (Getty Images)

In Syria, a convoy escorted us to Mount Qasioun that overlooks Damascus. There, Bassel had built a mini villa that he used as his office. Bashar had inherited it from him.

Bashar welcomed Hariri into his office, while Wissam al-Hassan and Yehya al-Arab - of Hariri’s security entourage - and I remained in the nearby salon. Signaling my companions to remain quiet, I tried to eavesdrop on the conversation going on in the office, but all I heard were murmurings and some laughter. I hoped that any snippet of conversation could break the tension.

The meeting went on for around an hour and a half. Bashar bid farewell to his guest the same way he greeted him. He accorded us with a farewell gesture, but without a handshake or speaking to us.

Hariri and I rode back to Lebanon together in the same car. He remained silent for most of the journey in Syria. “How was the meeting? You’re unusually silent,” I told him. “We’ll talk later” was his reply. When we entered Lebanon, he parked the car just near the border and told me to take the wheel.

He started talking as soon as we got back into the car. “The meeting was necessary and definitely good. Do you want me to be blunt? After this meeting, I am no longer afraid for Lebanon. We can handle our own problems. We are used to falling down and getting back up. I am now afraid for Syria,” he said.

“How so?” I asked. “After Hafez, Syria will be ruled by a child. God help Syria,” replied Hariri after which he reclined his seat and slept.

President Bashar al-Assad receives PM Hariri for a meeting. (Getty Images)

The next day, he told me that Bashar’s main concern now revolved around “arranging the internal house of his party, regime and family to address any emergency related to his father’s health. He sees in my friendship an opening to forge foreign relations which he will need in the coming period.” Hariri said Bashar asked him about his relationship with French President Jacques Chirac, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and the American administration. He asked for cooperation with Lahoud and to monitor the changes that will take place in Syria.

“The young man is awaiting the death of his father without openly saying it. He said his father’s health was concerning and that he was suffering from complications from diabetes,” added Hariri. He seemed reassured that Bashar was being preoccupied with the situation inside Syria.

Hafez realized that his son won’t kick off his term in office securely without the support of the Arab and international fold. He perhaps believed that Hariri could be a major player in paving the way for this support and who better than Hariri could achieve that?

 

*Next excerpt: Sole Article on the Agenda ... Insulting Rafik al-Hariri