Israel Now Controls Nearly 70% of Gaza, Nine Months Into the Truce
Israel’s military now controls close to 70% of the Gaza Strip, up from about half when the ceasefire began in October, according to a new analysis, as its footprint expands along shifting front lines that Prime Minister Netanyahu describes as a step-by-step plan to encircle Hamas. The United Nations says around 200 Palestinians have been killed near these lines since the truce took hold. President Trump’s plan for a full withdrawal, a new governing authority and Hamas’s disarmament remains stalled.
A ceasefire that leaves one side steadily expanding its control is a ceasefire in name more than substance, and the widening Israeli footprint is the clearest sign that the October truce froze the fighting without settling the war. Netanyahu’s “encirclement” framing casts the creeping advance as pressure to force Hamas’s disarmament; to Palestinians and much of the UN it looks like de facto annexation by increment. The stalled Trump plan is the missing keystone: without an agreed governing authority to replace Hamas and a credible reconstruction path, neither withdrawal nor disarmament has a mechanism, and the lines simply harden. The humanitarian toll continues along those lines even without a return to full-scale war. Watch whether the plan’s governance and disarmament tracks show any movement, whether the Israeli advances draw a diplomatic response, and whether the truce holds at all as the controlled area grows.