The Israeli military has been expanding beyond the “Yellow Line” in eastern Gaza and neighborhoods in Gaza City, pushing Palestinians into smaller areas of the city and causing further displacement. In eastern Gaza City’s Tuffah, Shujayea, and Zeitoun neighborhoods, the shifting markers have been causing dangerous confusion amongst Palestinians sheltering in the area.  

Since the October 10 ceasefire deal was established, Israel has violated the truce daily and continued its airstrikes on both sides of the so-called “Yellow Line”, which marks Israeli-designated buffer areas. Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said in October that those who crossed the “Yellow Line” would be “met with fire”. The Yellow Line has been marked on the ground with concrete yellow blocks by the IDF. However, they have been placing blocks deeper into Gaza, beyond the agreed-upon boundaries. Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City in early January, said: “The ongoing Israeli attacks on the ground, the expansion of the ‘yellow line’ are meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering.” 

An IDF spokesperson rejected “all claims that the Yellow Line has been moved or its crossing by IDF troops”, adding, “The IDF is operating to visually mark the Yellow Line in accordance with the conditions on the ground and the ongoing operational situational assessment.” However, according to satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify, blocks haven’t been placed along six miles of territory, which has sown confusion and fear amongst displaced people in the area. The satellite images have also shown that the IDF has returned to place blocks to move 16 positions deeper into the strip. Furthermore, over half of the 205 other markers have been placed significantly further into the Strip than the agreed-upon line marked on maps. In December, a 23-year-old man near Khan Younis– whom the BBC hasn’t named for his safety–  told the BBC that Israeli troops had suddenly moved blocks near him, saying “We are now living inside the Yellow Line, [but] behind the yellow blocks, with no idea what our fate will be,” he said. “The atmosphere at night is terrifying. We hear shells exploding, soldiers advancing, gunfire, and drones buzzing overhead without pause. We are also being shot at directly.”

The U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal with Hamas was negotiated on October 10 of last year, following two years of Israel’s siege on Gaza. Over 170,000 Palestinians have been injured, and 70,000 have been killed in Israel’s campaign in Gaza since it began. The campaign has been recognized as a genocide by a United Nations special committee, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and multiple human rights groups, including Amnesty International. In late November, Amnesty International released a brief delineating the continued suffering of people in Gaza, citing the unabating airstrikes as well as severe restrictions on humanitarian aid. “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal. But while Israeli authorities and forces have reduced the scale of their attacks and allowed limited amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over,” said Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard. As of the end of January, the Gaza Health Ministry recorded that 509 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire deal began. Israel currently occupies over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip, and the movement beyond the yellow line is reflective of the siege’s clear continuation. Prof. Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security expert from King’s College London, told the BBC that the movement of blocks is a “tool for territorial engineering”, enabling the IDF to move where Gazans can live and move without officially changing the border. “In practice, that means the status of land is less about what the ceasefire map says and more about where concrete blocks sit on a given day,” he said.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as its 19-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and decades-long occupation, has been enabled by the unconditional support it receives from the United States and its allies in Europe. This unconditional aid has allowed Israel to disregard international law and its humanitarian obligations in Palestine with impunity. The United States, which has maintained military aid to Israel and unconditionally supported its genocide in Gaza, negotiated the truce, which Israel violates daily. Despite the established ceasefire, Israel has continued to maintain unlivable conditions in the Gaza Strip, with unabating attacks and tightly restricted humanitarian aid. These ongoing violations of the ceasefire and, more broadly, the continued flouting of international humanitarian law must end, and are demonstrative of the failure of peacebuilding efforts in the region. Pressure from the international community has eased, and there has been no accountability regarding acts of genocide or investigations of officials who made genocidal statements in Israel. Failures to properly enforce the ceasefire and ensure human rights for Palestinians allow Israel to continue this genocide unrestricted, whilst Palestinians are left vulnerable to continued violence and dispossession.