Israel’s Yellow Line in Gaza: Annexation without Legal Burden

Israel’s Yellow Line in Gaza: Annexation without Legal Burden

Since the ceasefire of October 2025, Israel has kept moving the so-called Yellow Line deeper into Gaza, by about 300 metres in al-Shujaiya and 500 metres into the residential areas of eastern Gaza City. Ahmad Ibsais argues that the line is a form of annexation. It has no status as a border. It is a military demarcation, in places marked with yellow concrete barriers and cleared, closed-off land. Because Israel presents it as a temporary security measure, it can hold the land without facing the legal and political consequences of formally annexing it.

Ibsais compares the line with earlier arrangements that were also described as temporary, including the 1949 armistice lines, the Oslo Accords and the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, each of which ended with Israel controlling more Palestinian land. He points to the occupied Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, where the UN declared annexation null and void but nothing was done to reverse it. In Gaza, aid to areas beyond the line needs approval from the Israeli army, and cement, steel, timber and other building materials are restricted as “dual-use” goods. With homes destroyed and rebuilding blocked, people cannot return, and their displacement becomes permanent.

The brief ends with recommendations. Ibsais calls on the International Criminal Court to prioritise charges of land theft and issue arrest warrants, and on the states of the Hague Group to intervene in South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice. He also asks the UN General Assembly to request an ICJ advisory opinion on the Yellow Line, and asks media and civil society groups to record every shift of the line with satellite images, maps and testimony.

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Read the full policy brief on Al-Shabaka

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