GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: When Ibrahim Farahat awoke to discover a large yellow concrete block on his doorstep in Gaza City, he suddenly found himself right on the perilous demarcation line marking the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Several residents of the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, told AFP that they had found such blocks around their homes — which they believed had been placed by Israeli forces overnight between Thursday and Friday.
“They placed the yellow block in front of our house. It was previously near the Al-Aqsa pharmacy,” about a kilometer away (less than a mile), Farahat told AFP.
“Things were fine — it was far from us,” he added.
“Now gunfire is reaching our house.”
Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israeli troops have withdrawn to positions behind the so-called Yellow Line, though still in control of more than half the territory.
Since the fragile ceasefire came into effect on October 10, there have been multiple deadly incidents involving Israeli forces firing on people approaching or crossing the Yellow Line.
A number of Shujaiya’s residents have now decided to leave the neighborhood, yet another displacement for many since the start of the war more than two years ago.
Among them was Fadi Shafiq Hararah, who described to AFP how the large yellow blocks had been installed in his neighborhood.
“(The Israeli army) were equipped with robots, and there was a tank present. They also had a crane,” he said.
“We’re packing our belongings to leave. But where are we supposed to go?“
Akram Jaradah said this was his 16th displacement since October 7, 2023, when Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.
“I’ve been displaced 16 times — from one street to another, from one city to another, from the north to the south,” he told AFP.
“This Yellow Line means the (Israeli) army will constantly be present in the area, posing a danger to us,” he added.
When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was simply marking the Yellow Line.
“It was not expanding it in any way,” it added.
‘Escalating violations’
The Wall Street Journal published an investigation on Friday suggesting that Israel had sent reinforcements and installed water points along the yellow line.
The Israeli military told AFP that it could not comment on these allegations.
Under the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was negotiated through mediators including the United States, Israeli troops are supposed to eventually withdraw further than the Yellow Line, in step with the progress of the peace process in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said Israel “continues daily its campaign of shifting the yellow line inside the Strip westward.”
“This is a blatant breach of the agreement,” he added.
In a statement published Saturday, Hamas accused Israel of “escalating violations” of the ceasefire, citing the yellow line’s “daily westward advance, accompanied by the mass displacement of our people, in addition to airstrikes and artillery shelling of areas in the eastern Gaza Strip.”
The Islamist movement said that this had “led to changes in the occupation army’s withdrawal lines, contradicting the agreed-upon maps.”
The Israeli military has frequently issued statements saying it has killed militants who have crossed the Yellow Line and posed a threat to troops, also denouncing truce violations.
Since Wednesday, Hamas and Israel have been accusing each other of violating the ceasefire.
