Six months after the deadline for Hamas to disarm passed, Israel is reshaping the campaign in the Gaza Strip. A senior Western diplomat confirmed that Israel has significantly expanded its hold on the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, and that the IDF now controls 64% of the territory. The new boundary line along which IDF forces have taken up positions, dubbed the "orange line," replaces the more limited "yellow line" and adds 34 square kilometers (13 square miles) to Israel's security zones, about 11% of the total area of the Gaza Strip.
The Western diplomat confirmed that the move was carried out with the knowledge and approval of the Board of Peace, after it became clear that Hamas had violated its commitments and failed to meet the timetable for disarming. "No one fell asleep at the wheel here," the Western official said. "Further steps will be taken as long as Hamas continues to violate the understandings."
On the ground, the shift to the "orange line" is not merely a diplomatic statement. Palestinian officials report intensive engineering work to flatten infrastructure along the route of the new line, a move that is significantly reducing the terrorist organization's area of control. Assessments indicate that this amounts to the entrenchment of a new security reality that will make the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip difficult as long as Hamas maintains sovereignty over the areas still under its control.
The move to the "orange line" follows a deadlock in diplomatic contacts. As reported in Israel Hayom last week, the Trump administration has begun looking for "out-of-the-box ideas" to deal with Hamas' refusal to disarm, amid an understanding that previous plans to transfer the territory to the Palestinian "technocrats committee" are not feasible at this stage. While Washington initially showed great interest in every operational detail, the US administration now appears to have no objection to expanding the IDF's security zones as a direct response to Hamas' violations.
At the same time, the international command center in Kiryat Gat has already begun making adjustments for its new missions. Whereas in the past the command center focused on monitoring the flow of aid and the ceasefire, it is now expected to support the change in territorial control. The move marks Israel's shift away from declarations of "total victory" and toward a strategy of creating facts on the ground, a strategy that deepens Israeli control with every day Hamas retains its military power.
