[News] How Israel is using militias and concrete blocks to seize what remains of Gaza

Wed May 20 11:34:37 EDT 2026

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How Israel is using militias and concrete blocks to seize what remains of
Gaza By Tareq S. Hajjaj <https://mondoweiss.net/author/tareqhajjaj/> May
19, 2026
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[image: image.png]

Israeli forces demolish a house near the “Yellow Line,” dropping leaflets
for residents to leave the al-Raqab al-Gharbi neighborhood, adjacent to
Salah al-Din Street in the town of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis in the
southern Gaza Strip, January 19, 2026. (Photo: Tariq Mohammad/APA Images)

On the morning of May 13, residents near al-Hikma Mosque in eastern Deir
al-Balah began receiving phone calls from someone claiming to be “Captain
Abu Omar,” an Israeli army officer, ordering them to evacuate their homes
and move more than 200 meters west of the mosque. He gave them less than
one week to leave.

That same afternoon, armed fighters loyal to Shawqi Abu Nuseira, a militia
leader in Gaza who residents say is armed and protected by the Israeli
military, stormed the same neighborhoods the army had warned hours earlier.
According to residents, they delivered the same message, telling them to
evacuate.

The scene in Deir al-Balah is part of a broader pattern unfolding across
Gaza. Since the beginning of May, Israeli forces have been pushing the
yellow concrete blocks that demarcate the so-called “Yellow Line
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/theres-a-yellow-line-dividing-gaza-is-it-here-to-stay/>”
deeper into areas of the Strip nominally under Hamas control. According to
Reuters
<https://www.reuters.com/world/israeli-maps-outline-expanded-zone-military-control-gaza-2026-04-29/>,
the line has seized an additional 11% of Gaza’s territory, bringing the
total area under Israeli military control to 65%. At the start of the
ceasefire in October 2025, Israel controlled 53% of the Strip, an
arrangement that was supposed to be temporary and lead to a gradual Israeli
withdrawal from the enclave. The new expansion has come to be known as the
“orange line,” confining over 2.2 million Palestinians to what remains of
Gaza.
[image: A map of the "orange line" distributed by the Israeli army to
international organizations (Photo: Screenshot/GISHA)]A map of the “orange
line” distributed by the Israeli army to international organizations
(Photo: Screenshot/GISHA)

Abu Nuseira, according to residents in central Gaza and Khan Younis, was
once a longtime militant with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces
in Gaza, with a long history of fighting against Israel. He lost a son in
the early weeks of the 2023 war, after which he began to more aggressively
move against Hamas. He and his militia now operate from area under Israeli
control, and they are widely regarded in Gaza as collaborators who receive
arms and logistical support from Israel.

In a video <https://www.facebook.com/reel/976520525233422> posted to the
militia’s Facebook page, Abu Nuseira appears surrounded by heavily armed
and masked men. He says he is “protecting people’s lives,” and that their
“continued suffering is linked to Hamas’s refusal to hand over the
administration of the Gaza Strip.” When he finishes speaking, his men
repeatedly chant, “Death to Hamas.”

Muhammad al-Amour, a resident of eastern Deir al-Balah, told *Mondoweiss*
that some families received direct evacuation calls from the Israeli army,
and that the militias arrived in those same areas on the same day,
“notifying residents, including dozens of displaced people and homes near
the Yellow Line in eastern Deir al-Balah.” Al-Amour said residents took the
warnings seriously and began evacuating their homes, fearing they would be
shot by the militias or bombed by the army if they stayed. “This has
happened repeatedly to other families in different areas throughout the
war,” he said.
[image: The "Yellow Line" cutting Gaza on half in November 2025. (Photo:
Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)]The “Yellow Line” cutting Gaza on half in November
2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images) *Gaza’s new ‘Berlin wall’*

In Khan Younis in the south, the orange line has moved to within
approximately 200 meters of areas where displaced people are sheltering.
Palestinians have compared the yellow and orange lines to the Berlin Wall
and, at other times, to the apartheid wall that cuts through the occupied
West Bank. This invisible boundary separates tens of thousands of families
from their homes, lands, and property in areas where the army continues to
demolish what remains standing.

Mahmoud al-Raqab, a displaced resident of Khan Younis living around 300
meters from the Yellow Line, told *Mondoweiss* that the line’s continued
advance toward residential areas is “extremely dangerous.”

“Sadness, anxiety, and fear overwhelm us as this expansion continues toward
what remains of our land, our neighborhood, and our tents,” he said. “It is
shrinking the spaces available to us, preventing us from even walking near
our homes, and increasing the likelihood of more land, homes, tents, and
businesses being seized.”

Al-Raqab said he sees what is happening as identical to the land
confiscation and movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the West
Bank and buffer zones. “It is destroying any hope that the rest of my
family and our neighbors will one day return to live alongside them again,”
al-Raqab told *Mondoweiss*.
[image: Palestinians near the so-called "yellow line" east of Khan Younis
live amid difficult conditions, April 27, 2026. (Photo: Ramzi Abu Amer/APA
Images)]Palestinians near the so-called “yellow line” east of Khan Younis
live amid difficult conditions, April 27, 2026. (Photo: Ramzi Abu Amer/APA
Images)

“The army is expanding its occupation over vast agricultural lands and open
areas near Salah al-Din Street and the eastern regions, while digging deep
trenches to prevent entry into the area and deny Palestinians the ability
to cultivate it again,” he added. The eastern region is considered Gaza’s
“vegetable basket,” home to farms, olive and citrus trees, and the
livelihoods of tens of thousands of families who own land in eastern Khan
Younis.

“This is a new apartheid wall being established in the Gaza Strip,” he
said. “Today, they place concrete blocks. Tomorrow, they will build high
walls. They are separating our lands, placing barriers between us and our
homes, imposing restrictions on our movement to our houses, farms, and
lands, separating people from their property and original areas, and
gradually swallowing our land before our eyes.”

Al-Raqab said he has watched the line advance approximately eight times
over the past 12 months, and that je personally witnessed the Orange Line’s
most recent expansion. He said that it cut off new areas stretching from
Dar al-Salam Hospital to the Bani Suhaila roundabout east of Khan Younis
along Salah al-Din Street, as he lives in an area adjacent to the line.

“We have nothing to do with this line,” he said. “We can’t ignore it and go
to our homes: we will get killed immediately. It’s not heroism to go get
killed. It’s not a personal issue for me and my home and land. An
occupation is stealing my entire homeland, not just my land. And if we
can’t do anything now to get our land back, that does not mean we forget
about it. We will keep it in our hearts and minds until we return.”
------------------------------

*Tareq S. Hajjaj*
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Gaza Correspondent for Mondoweiss and a member of
the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter/X at @Tareqshajjaj
<https://twitter.com/Tareqshajjaj>.
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