What is the Morag Corridor and why is it important?

As Israel and Hamas negotiate a ceasefire, the Morag Corridor has become a key tactical asset, but it's unclear whether keeping IDF troops on the corridor post-ceasefire is a dealbreaker for Israel.

In the ongoing negotiations over a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, the latest issue getting attention is the IDF’s newly-created (as of April) Morag Corridor in southern Gaza, just north of Rafah.

Whether the IDF keeping troops on the Morag Corridor post-ceasefire is a deal-breaker for Israel at this point is unclear. Some Israeli officials connected to the Prime Minister’s Office have suggested that it might be, whereas Defense Minister Israel Katz has suggested that it is important, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.

What is clear is its strategic and tactical value to the IDF in confronting Gaza security problems.

The Jerusalem Post toured the corridor in April to witness the route the IDF wanted to use for cutting off the deep southern Gaza region of Rafah from the mid-southern Gaza region of Khan Yunis.

Clearing a large portion of structures in the Morag Corridor area to make it impossible for Hamas to mount a surprise attack above ground without being seen was led by the IDF's 36th Division and its commander, Brig.-Gen. Moran Omer.

The IDF said that the full length of the corridor could stretch up to 12 kilometers with a minimum width of 300 meters in all directions.

Primarily, the purpose of the new corridor’s series of military positions, which join the Netzarim Corridor that cuts off Khan Yunis and Rafah from northern Gaza, as well as the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Egypt and Gaza, is to make it easier for the IDF to defeat Hamas’s remaining forces in Rafah.

Military sources in April said Hamas had two battalions in Rafah, which collectively had around 200 fighters, who were later defeated.

Katz: The corridor increases pressure on Hamas to release hostages

Katz has said that the purpose of Morag is to “increase the pressure [on Hamas] to release the hostages and to build a bridge for the continuation of operations for defeating Hamas.”

Further, the IDF has said that establishing the Morag Corridor had altered Hamas’s calculations about the future because it led to a mass re-evacuation of the Palestinian civilian population from Rafah back to the al-Mawasi humanitarian area.

At the start of the war, Hamas’s top priority was any military achievement it could attain by killing IDF soldiers in battle or ambushes in Gaza or by killing Israeli civilians with its rocket arsenal, per the military.

But by April, Hamas was barely even trying to hold back IDF invasions and barely firing any rockets at Israeli civilians. However, it was still highly concerned about trying to permanently return its civilian population to their residential areas to show it could still assert control and governance over the enclave.

Put differently, if, when the war started, Hamas wanted to impress all parties with its military prowess, it gave up on that and now has the humbler goal of not losing political control over Gaza’s population.

Military sources have said that Hamas’s weapons manufacturing capabilities have been hit hard by IDF actions, but that it still retains a variety of makeshift facilities.

In that light, having more forces in the Morag Corridor makes it easier to act speedily against such facilities when they are discovered and before Hamas manufacturers are able to escape.

If the IDF tries to maintain some kind of Hamas-free humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, keeping the Morag Corridor would increase the chances of that initiative succeeding.