Ruwaida Amer
+972 Magazine / June 9, 2026
Pushing to seize 70 percent of Gaza’s territory, the Israeli army is opening fire at Palestinian civilians caught off guard by the ever-expanding ‘Yellow Line.’
In early May, Mohammed Suleiman set out to visit his parents, as he does every month. The 42-year-old lives in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, while his parents live to the south in Khan Younis. He chose the quickest route: driving along Salah al-Din Street, Gaza’s main north-south traffic artery. But that day, his journey would be interrupted — almost fatally.
“I was near Bani Suheila on Salah al-Din Street when I was suddenly hit in the hand by a bullet fired by the Israeli army,” he told +972 Magazine.
Mohammed was evacuated to Nasser Medical Complex where he underwent treatment for his injury, which fortunately was minor. “I survived this time, but I don’t know what will happen to me or anyone else next time,” he said. “It’s not enough that we’re targeted repeatedly [by bombings]; now passersby are being shot at.”
The so-called “ceasefire” agreed last October between Israel and Hamas gave birth to a phenomenon that has not stopped haunting Gaza’s residents: the “Yellow Line.” It was supposed to delineate the boundary of Israel’s occupation of Gaza’s territory, prior to a phased withdrawal as the ceasefire progressed. But instead of withdrawing, Israeli forces are advancing.
At first, Israel retained direct control of around 53 percent of Gaza’s territory, whose residents it had forcibly displaced to the other side of the Strip. Over the past six months, during which time the Israeli army has killed close to 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza, soldiers have kept pushing westward, seizing over 60 percent of the land. Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he had ordered the army to make that 70 percent — a process taking place in full coordination with the White House.
In recent days, Palestinian residents have witnessed an intensification of Israeli military activity in the areas adjacent to the current location of the Yellow Line, further fuelling fears about their fate. And nowhere is this being felt more acutely than along Salah al-Din Street.
Khalil al-Sayed, a driver in his fifties, relies on the road for his livelihood. “I’ve been a driver since I was 18, and it’s the only job I can do,” he explained.
While Salah al-Din was generally accessible to drivers like Al-Sayed for the first few months of the ceasefire, that has begun to change. “For about two months now, we’ve felt a growing sense of danger on the road because of the approaching yellow blocks,” he said, referring to the Israeli army’s mechanism for demarcating the Yellow Line. “We drivers contact each other every morning to ask about the road conditions: Is it clear? Has there been gunfire? Are there tanks present?
“We go out to work not knowing what will happen to us,” he continued. “The indiscriminate firing is terrifying. Many times, tanks emerge from the Zeitoun area in the north and force us to change our route toward the sea to escape them. This is a truly tragic situation, and we don’t know what the future holds.”
‘Nothing has changed since the ceasefire’
In Khan Younis, the Yellow Line is creeping ever closer to the city center. Whereas the eastern parts of the city have been occupied by the Israeli army since before the “ceasefire” and largely destroyed, the center has in recent months seen a resurgence of commercial activity. This, too, now appears under threat.
In recent days, Palestinians in the neighbourhood of Al-Bayuk, slightly east of the city center, have reported the appearance of new yellow concrete blocks placed by the Israeli army. In response, residents have begun fleeing westward to escape the military’s encroachment.
Mohammed al-Bayuk (who shares a surname with the neighbourhood) is now searching for a place for his family to live in the Al-Mawasi area along Gaza’s coast. The father of three had returned to Al-Bayuk after the “ceasefire” to find that his home had been destroyed, so he erected a tent on the rubble in order to remain on his land. Now, however, he is preparing to flee once again.
“I’m in shock because of these yellow blocks,” he told +972 Magazine. “They are turning my life back into hell. I have a small family to support — including my mother, brother, and sisters whom I care for since my father died a year before the war. I don’t know how I can stay in the area with this danger nearby. I’m trying to find a place for us in Al-Mawasi but it is very crowded with displaced people.”
Earlier this month, the Israeli army bombed his neighbourhood — which Al-Bayuk believes was designed to terrorize residents into fleeing. “It was terrifying,” he recounted. “What is most shocking is that we are being displaced during a ceasefire. I don’t know what the mediators are doing about this significant expansion of the Yellow Zone.”
Salem Awad, a 45-year-old father of six from Rafah who is currently living in a tent in Al-Mawasi, described the Israeli army’s daily movement of the Yellow Line as akin to a game of chess. “I haven’t been able to enter Rafah for almost three years, and I feel like I’m dying because of it,” he told +972 Magazine. “I pitched the tent as close as I could to breathe a little of my city — only to find the yellow blocks moving closer to us [last week]. Now we’re right next to them, meaning we’re in a danger zone.
“I can’t stay where I am and ignore those blocks because the Israeli army is treacherous and can target us at any moment, claiming we pose a threat to their forces,” Awad continued. “I made my children and family go to their grandfather’s tent until I found a place to pitch my own tent and move away from here.
“We’re living under immense injustice,” he continued. “Nothing has changed at all [since the ceasefire]. We hear the constant sounds of explosions, which are terrifying. We hear the tanks moving and see the lights east of Rafah and in its surrounding areas. We’re here waiting for any solution.”
East of Deir al-Balah, residents have been facing a similar threat for over a month. “We returned to our home when the ceasefire started because it’s not inside the Yellow Zone,” Ahmed al-Saeed, from this area, told +972 Magazine. “We started to adapt a little to the presence of tanks and the army nearby, but it was terrifying. I tried to keep the children and anyone else away from those concrete blocks.
“Then, a month ago, the army ordered us to evacuate to the west,” he continued. “I thought it was a temporary situation, that we would be displaced for a day or a night, and then it would be over. But a few days later, we were shocked to find that the army had begun destroying what remained of our homes so that we could never return. Now the area has become a Yellow Zone, off-limits.
“These concrete blocks are moving closer every day from east to west, and we are all confined along the western coast,” Al-Saeed said. “We want to understand: Is this an occupation of Gaza and forced displacement, or what? We have children without shelter, and we’re in a ceasefire. We’ve never experienced anything like this before. The existence of the Yellow Line is a nightmare for all of us, and we don’t know when it will end.”
Ruwaida Amer is a freelance journalist from Khan Younis
