The Israeli public is intensively discussing the priorities of its war objectives. Does bringing the hostages home override defeating Hamas, or vice versa? The answer is to be found in Rafah, because without Rafah and without control over the Philadelphi Corridor, those two objectives will remain unachieved and so will the long-term objective of preventing Hamas from rebuilding its strength in the future.

The retreat from Rafah:The Philadelphi Corridor and the start of the Tunnel Era

The Philadelphi Corridor stretches for 14 kilometers, with a width of only 100 meters. Despite its small area, the Corridor was one of the central factors enabling Hamas to acquire strength and become a terrorist army, and it is also the key to Israeli victory in the war of Iron Swords.

An understanding of what the Philadelphi Corridor is, and how it is related to control over Rafah, requires an understanding of the Rafah district’s history in the first place, which means going back to 1906. In that year the British were ruling Egypt and increased its territory at the expense of the Gaza Strip. In an agreement between the British and the Ottoman Empire, which was ruling the Land of Israel, the…