Ramona Wadi is a freelance journalist and book reviewer. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America.X:@walzerscent |Bluesky:Ramona Wadi
As the ceasefire in Gaza stalls, Israel appears to be hardening its military occupation of the Strip's territory through the Yellow Line separating its territorial control from that of Hamas. Israel's efforts reflect a long-running trend of colonial occupation and expansion against Palestine that the international community—including and particularly the United Nations—has failed to prevent. These ongoing dynamics spell poorly for Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel's genocide and supposed advancement into the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan.
Two recent comments by Israeli officials expose the effort to chip away at the Strip. Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir on Dec. 7 described the Yellow Line as "a new border line, a forward defensive line for the communities and an offensive line." Similarly, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has asserted that the Israeli military would never withdraw from Gaza: "We are located deep inside Gaza, and we will never leave." He also mentioned plans to establish outposts for the Nahal units in northern Gaza—military units closely linked to Israel's settler movement.
Responding to Zamir's remarks, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric maintained the international organization's opposition to "any alterations to the borders of Gaza and Israel." Yet while the United Nations recognizes the pre-1967 Israel-Palestine border lines, it has failed to halt Israel's colonial expansion against those and previous lines for decades.
While the United Nations recognizes the pre-1967 Israel-Palestine border lines, it has failed to halt Israel's colonial expansion against those and previous lines for decades.
- Ramona Wadi
That dynamic undergirds a pattern of nonbinding U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions condemning settlement expansion post-1967. However, the problem's root causes date back to the division of Palestinian land under the 1947 Partition Plan, which established the state of Israel. The Yellow Line now partitioning Gaza is the latest manifestation of that colonial land seizure.
Gaza's 361 square kilometers of land—originally home to around 80,000 people—absorbed roughly 200,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 during the Nakba, or the brutal forced displacement of Palestinians upon the creation of Israel. That population grew to almost 1.5 million in 2018. By October 2023, Gaza's population reached 2.22 million people. This expansion of Gaza's population represents the consequences of forced displacement and restrictions on freedom of movement, concentrating extreme population density and poverty in the Strip—all tools of colonial containment.
In the three decades following the 1967 war, Israel built 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza, occupying approximately 20% of the territory. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan dismantled these settlements in 2005, allowing Israel to concentrate settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Then, in 2007, Israel imposed a comprehensive blockade on Gaza after Hamas took power, isolating it from the outside world and increasing Palestinian vulnerability to colonial violence. Major military assaults, such as Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014, served as precursors to the genocide unleashed upon Palestinians in October 2023 and further efforts to displace Palestinians today.
In this context, development and reconstruction have suffered by design, with Israel's prohibition of dual-use materials and its bureaucratic approval system for reconstruction becoming key aspects of its colonial surveillance tactics. For example, in 2015—one year after Operation Protective Edge—less than 1% of the required materials for reconstruction had entered Gaza. Not a single home was rebuilt that year.
The Yellow Line is, therefore, a continuation of colonial precedent. As a result of this demarcation, Israel now controls 58% of Gaza with no clear end in sight.
- Ramona Wadi
Similarly, each Israeli assault on Gaza has not only destroyed infrastructure—reducing habitable space—but has also contaminated agricultural land. In 2016, the Israeli Ministry of Defense confirmed it had sprayed 12 square kilometers of land in southern Gaza with herbicides. In 2024, Euro-Med Monitor reported that since October 2023, Israel has destroyed 96 square kilometers of Gaza's agricultural land along the security fence separating the territory from the country. Further, Israel destroyed three square kilometers to create the Netzarim corridor bisecting the Strip. Outside the buffer zone, Israel's military aggressions spoiled another 34 square kilometers of land. In total, Israel has rendered unusable 36.9% of Gaza's territory under the guise of security, or 75% of its agricultural land.
The Yellow Line is, therefore, a continuation of colonial precedent. As a result of this demarcation, Israel now controls 58% of Gaza with no clear end in sight. As investigative outlet Forensic Architecture mapping highlights, the line is fluid, mirroring Israel's broader approach to borders.
First mentioned by the Israeli military on Oct. 10, the Yellow Line became another kill zone, similar to how the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) facilitated Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that in the first five days following the demarcation announcement, Israeli forces killed 15 Palestinians for allegedly attempting to cross the Yellow Line to reach their homes. Katz later announced the establishment of demarcation posts on Oct. 17, after the initial killings had already occurred.
At the time, Forensic Architecture's mapping established that 27 yellow demarcation posts extend up to 940 meters further into Gaza than indicated on official Israeli military maps of the Yellow Line by mid-November 2025. According to the organization, Israel is demolishing buildings on both sides of the line, "threatening to transform temporary dispossession into the permanent displacement of Palestinians from more than half of Gaza's land." To advance this effort, Israel has constructed 48 military outposts east of the Yellow Line, all connected to infrastructure outside Gaza.
Yet despite the U.N.'s rhetorical rejection of Israeli attempts to impose a new border through its military occupation of Gaza, Israel continues its colonial expansion. Over the decades, the U.N. approach focused on human rights violations while failing to tackle the broader colonial framework allowing Israel's gradual encroachment on Palestine. For example, the U.N. has condemned Israel's illegal blockade, reduced fishing zones in the Mediterranean Sea and a restrictions of access to potable water, but has failed to situate these violations within the colonial context or apply real consequences for such actions. This omission weakens criticism while bolstering impunity for Israel, as calls to revoke these violations are non-binding.
The UNSC's endorsement of Trump's plan for Gaza only worsens this dynamic while offering a telling example of its inertia. As U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has stated, "The Security Council resolution is very clear about not calling anything a border or anything else, it is about a territory that needs to be respected in its entirety." Thus, the core issue preventing a true resolution regarding territory continues, as rhetorical support for territorial integrity falls short by stopping at just that—rhetoric that, in and of itself, is weak, fails to recognize the reality on the ground. Such an approach endorses mechanisms like the Yellow Line, contradicting the supposed goal of respecting international law and Palestinian rights.
Undoing such violations requires a thorough reckoning with the U.N.'s history of generating impunity for Israeli colonialism in Palestine. To be sure, the international community more broadly has a driving role in such failings as well. Yet amid reported Israeli plans to renew a full assault beyond the Yellow Line in March—placing more of Gaza's territory under military occupation and possibly within new colonial borders—history looks set to repeat itself at Palestine's expense.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
