{"id":644039,"date":"2026-10-12T11:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T11:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644039\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T11:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T11:22:11","slug":"maps-show-how-israels-yellow-line-keeps-squeezing-palestinians-in-gaza-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644039\/","title":{"rendered":"Maps show how Israel\u2019s \u2018Yellow Line\u2019 keeps squeezing Palestinians in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel has expanded its military occupation in the Gaza Strip in violation of a United States-brokered \u2018ceasefire\u2019<\/a>, forcing Palestinians into an ever-smaller share of the besieged territory, devastated by Israel\u2019s ongoing genocidal war.<\/p>\n

Nearly two-thirds of Gaza is now under Israeli military control or subject to access restrictions.<\/p>\n

The original \u2018Yellow Line\u2019, established under US President Donald Trump\u2019s 20-point plan to end the war, marked the area to which Israeli forces initially withdrew. They were expected to make further withdrawals gradually, but instead, they have seized more territory.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Israeli forces moved yellow concrete blocks dozens of metres west in Shujayea, a neighbourhood in southeastern Gaza City, forcing Palestinian families to flee and bringing more of the neighbourhood under Israeli military control.<\/p>\n

\"AA yellow block demarcating the \u2018Yellow Line\u2019, which has separated the Gaza Strip\u2019s Israeli-held and Palestinian zones since a \u2018ceasefire\u2019 began a year ago, is seen in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 22, 2026 [Abdel Kareem Hana\/AP Photo]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not simply about where the \u2018Yellow Line\u2019 is today but where it can move next,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Ibrahim al-Khalili said, reporting from Gaza City. \u201cFor families who have been repeatedly displaced in the past three years, the situation remains dire, and they have to make the impossible decision of where they can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 90 percent of Gaza\u2019s 2.1 million population has been forcibly displaced by Israel\u2019s war, launched on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.<\/p>\n

Using maps, Al Jazeera shows how much of Gaza Israel has grabbed since the \u2018ceasefire\u2019.<\/p>\n

Gaza before the war<\/p>\n

Before the war, Palestinians were spread across the Gaza Strip, a 365sq km (141sq-mile) territory roughly 41km (25 miles) long and from 6km to 12km (4 to 7 miles) wide.<\/p>\n

That made it one of the most densely populated places on Earth with about 6,000 people per square kilometre, similar to Nairobi or London. Each person had, on average, about 160sq metres (1,722sq ft) of land.<\/p>\n

Even then, not all of Gaza\u2019s land was accessible. Israel enforced a buffer zone along the fence with Israel, and Palestinians who approached it risked being shot. In 2010, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that the restricted area covered 17 percent of Gaza\u2019s land and 35 percent of its farmland.<\/p>\n

Gaza has been under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE<\/p>\n

Gaza at the \u2018ceasefire\u2019<\/p>\n

Under the first phase of the \u201cceasefire\u201d, Israeli forces were to withdraw to the \u201cYellow Line\u201d within 24 hours, after which a 72-hour period began for the handover of Israeli captives held in Gaza. Trump first published a map of the line on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n

The line left Israel in control of 53 percent of the Strip, mostly farmland and border areas in the east, and confined Palestinians to the remaining 47 percent, about 172sq km (66sq miles).<\/p>\n

By October 2025, two years of war had killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, and tens of thousands more had left the territory, reducing Gaza\u2019s population to about 2.1 million.<\/p>\n

Pushed into less than half of Gaza\u2019s territory under the \u201cceasefire\u201d, its density doubled to about 12,000 people per square kilometre, comparable to New York City. Each person was left with about 82sq metres (883sq ft).<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE(Al Jazeera)Gaza today<\/p>\n

Since the \u201cceasefire\u201d, Israeli forces have repeatedly moved the yellow concrete blocks marking the \u201cYellow Line\u201d farther west, sometimes overnight, expanding the areas under their control. Satellite imagery has also documented continued demolitions in areas held by Israeli forces.<\/p>\n

The research group Forensic Architecture estimated that Israel controlled 58 percent of Gaza by December. In March, the Israeli military sent aid agencies maps of a new \u201corange line\u201d, a restricted zone beyond the \u201cYellow Line\u201d where humanitarian movements must be coordinated with the army.<\/p>\n

According to OCHA, restrictions now cover 65 percent of Gaza. Israel itself said it controls about 70 percent of the territory, a UN official told the Security Council in June.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE(Al Jazeera)<\/p>\n

That leaves 2.1 million people in about 35 percent of the Strip, roughly 128sq km (49sq miles). The population density has nearly tripled since before the war to about 16,000 people per square kilometre, close to central Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Each person now has about 61sq metres (657sq ft) of land for everything: shelter, roads, schools, hospitals and farmland.<\/p>\n

Unlike Tokyo, Gaza has little space left to house its people. The UN Satellite Centre, UNOSAT, found 82 percent of structures in the Strip are damaged or destroyed. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says only 3 percent of Gaza\u2019s cropland is both undamaged and accessible.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE(Al Jazeera)<\/p>\n

OCHA says the remaining 35 percent of Gaza is \u201calready overcrowded\u201d and access restrictions are a key obstacle as aid groups try to relocate families before the rainy season. More than 950,000 people live in displacement sites at risk of flooding, according to the UN, most of them in tents and makeshift shelters, as seen in the satellite image below.<\/p>\n

Approaching the \u2018Yellow Line\u201d can be deadly. Israel treats areas beyond it as a free-fire zone, and Palestinians who come near it have been shot. Nearly 1,500 people have been killed across Gaza since the ceasefire was announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel has expanded its military occupation in the Gaza Strip in violation of a United States-brokered \u2018ceasefire\u2019, forcing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1153,5697,85,9778,9779,46,44,9780,47,43,48],"class_list":["post-644039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-conflict","tag-explainer","tag-il","tag-infographic","tag-interactive","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-maps","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}