According to unverified accounts from local journalists, troops have for the first time since the war begun started leaving the western part of the Gaza District and northern strip.

The Philadelphi Corridor, which was established after the signing of the Peace Accords with Egypt, left thousands of Rafah residents on the Egyptian side of the border. Families were artificially separated. Already back then, they began to excavate the first tunnels. At first, they served to maintain the ties between the families. Later on, they began to smuggle commodities and drugs via the tunnels, and following the Oslo Accords, they smuggled heavy weapons too.