Government Media in Gaza: The Occupation Controls 65% of the Gaza Strip Area

SadaNews - The government media office in the Gaza Strip stated on Wednesday that the Israeli occupation is using the "yellow line" as a cover for a creeping policy aimed at isolating and destroying vast areas of the Strip.

The office noted in a statement that the latest field data indicates that restricted access areas have expanded to consume about 65% of the total area of the Gaza Strip, up from an estimated 53%.

It reported that over the past few days, there has been dangerous progress by military vehicles and yellow concrete blocks in several areas. In the central governorate, the yellow line has been moved westward by 300 to 350 meters, leading to the confiscation and leveling of agricultural land and residential homes belonging to Palestinian families, while making other homes just a few meters away from the occupation's barracks.

In Gaza governorate, the occupation advanced into residential neighborhoods, imposing a suffocating siege on the residents and civilians, forcing dozens of families to repeatedly flee under the threat of shelling, killing, and gunfire.

Additionally, the areas adjacent to the line in the northern Gaza Strip have turned into open military zones, where houses have been completely leveled from the train street to Sheikh Zayed roundabout, with massive earthen barriers and watchtowers established to turn the area into a sniping and killing ground.

The office stated: "The occupation's expansion is not limited to land theft; it is accompanied by direct blood terror. Getting close to this line has turned into a field death sentence, as field and international reports documented the rise of 23 martyrs in just one week (between July 13 and 20) near this line, raising the number of martyrs in these areas since the ceasefire began to more than 1165. The occupation relies on drone 'quadcopters' to terrify the safe, issue forced evacuation orders under the threat of fire, and remotely blow up houses."

It added: "This military expansion has led to the isolation of vital facilities, causing a service and environmental catastrophe. Municipal teams have become unable to access about half of the residential areas, preventing the operation of water wells, sewage treatment plants, and main control rooms. The accumulation of hundreds of thousands of displaced people and citizens in cramped spaces, while being deprived of basic services, threatens to explode an unprecedented health and environmental crisis, for which the world bears responsibility, and this is a warning to everyone without exception."

The office strongly condemned what it described as "the silent and systematic crime being executed by the Israeli occupation army through the continuous expansion and widening of what is known as the yellow line, turning it from a temporary field mark linked to ceasefire agreements into a colonial tool to swallow more of Gaza's land, impose new geographic and demographic realities by force of arms, and impose a policy of forced displacement against civilians periodically and continuously, in blatant violation of all international laws and conventions."

The government media office in Gaza confirmed that what is happening is a colonial political course being passed through systematic and clear field violations, where the occupation seeks to separate military and security control from civil responsibility towards the population, transforming temporary military presence into a long-term reality that paves the way for security and settlement arrangements similar to those that occurred after 1967, in addition to a complete renunciation of commitments from the ceasefire agreements that stipulated full phased withdrawals.

It called on the international community, the United Nations, and the United Nations Security Council to intervene immediately and urgently to stop this systematic military expansion, obliging the Israeli occupation to immediately withdraw from the land that has been encroached upon.

It also urged the International Criminal Court and human rights institutions to document crimes of field killings and forced displacement accompanied by the expansion of the "yellow line," and to include them in war crime and crimes against humanity files committed against the Palestinian people.

Finally, it warned against interpreting these transgressions internationally as "routine events," stressing that silence on this geographic and demographic depletion is an actual participation in the siege, strangulation, and killing of the Gaza Strip and all that lives within it.