The Washington Post published footage Tuesday showing progress on a road Israel has been carving out through urban parts of northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, dividing Gaza City from the cities to its north, in what the military has said is a temporary logistics and separation road.

The outlet cited a researcher who argued that the pattern of construction and the destruction of buildings near the new east-west road resemble the process of establishing the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border in the south.

It cited William Goodhind, an analyst at the Contested Ground military research project, as speculating that Israel may be establishing a third corridor that bisects Gaza from the Israeli border in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, as part of a plan to create a buffer zone in Gaza’s far north that will stay under Israeli military rule.

The road “effectively segments Gaza so that more systematic clearance operations can begin while a de facto border locks down movement to the south,” he claimed.

Rejecting that notion, former IDF Gaza division deputy commander Brig. Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi told the Post that the pathway is aimed at providing “logistics channels” and doesn’t represent a “long-term policy.”

Similarly, the IDF said in early November that northern Gaza’s towns had been disconnected from Gaza City amid the ongoing operation, whose goal the army said was to prevent Hamas operatives from escaping or, alternatively, from........

© The Times of Israel