# Netanyahu says Israel will press ahead with Gaza corridor plan as strikes kill more than 40
Israel's prime minister has said the army is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip, describing it as a way to intensify pressure on Hamas until the remaining hostages are returned.
The announcement on April 2, 2025, came as Israeli airstrikes hit multiple parts of Gaza and Palestinian health officials said more than 40 people were killed, nearly half of them women and children. One of the deadliest strikes hit a U.N. building in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where the local hospital said 15 people were killed, including nine children and two women. The Israeli military said it had struck militants inside a command-and-control center.
Netanyahu said the new route would be called the Morag corridor, using the name of a former Jewish settlement between Rafah and Khan Younis. He suggested it would run between the two southern cities and would effectively cut off Rafah from the rest of the Palestinian territory. He called it “a second Philadelphi corridor,” a reference to the border strip along Gaza’s frontier with Egypt that Israel has controlled since last May.
The plan follows a renewed Israeli offensive after a ceasefire collapsed in March. Israel has also imposed a monthlong halt on food, fuel and humanitarian aid entering Gaza, further squeezing civilians already living through repeated displacement. The U.N. says more than 60% of Gaza is now a no-go zone because of evacuation orders, and hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering in tent camps or in ruined homes.
Netanyahu framed the corridor plan as a necessary step to force Hamas to release the hostages, disarm and leave the territory. Israel says 59 hostages remain in Gaza, including 24 believed to be alive. Hamas has said it will not release them without a permanent ceasefire, more prisoner releases and a full Israeli withdrawal.
The Palestinian Authority rejected the proposed corridor, and hostage families in Israel voiced alarm over the widening campaign. Their fear is that expanding ground control and air operations will endanger captives rather than bring them home.
The latest announcement also lands against a broader political argument over Gaza’s future. Netanyahu has said Israel plans to keep overall security control after the war and has echoed President Donald Trump’s idea of resettling much of Gaza’s population elsewhere through what he called “voluntary emigration.” Palestinians and human rights experts have rejected that framing, warning it would amount to forced displacement and likely violate international law.
For now, the military map of Gaza appears to be hardening. Israel has already reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor in the north, while the newly proposed Morag route would add another layer of territorial division in the south. In practical terms, that means more barriers to movement for Palestinians, more leverage for Israel over the battlefield and more uncertainty for the families still waiting for the war to end.
The corridor plan is part of a strategy designed to sustain military pressure. Whether it changes Hamas’s calculations, or simply deepens the humanitarian crisis, remains the central question as the war enters another dangerous phase.
