Israeli military’s deadly Yellow Line, with Jon Elmer

You are watching and listening to the electronic inifat. I am John Elmer. This is the resistance report ceasefire edition for day 748 of Israel's genocide and this is day number 14 of the ceasefire. I am reporting this on the 23rd of October. Just brief introduction. Um as ever with Israel and as Norah reported uh in her newscast, the ceasefire is not being fully adhered to. core elements of it are not being adhered to by the Israelis since uh it went into effect on October 11th. Uh there's been more than 80 violations, 88 people killed, 315 people wounded, and most of these are around or on the so-called yellow line that I will break down today. The bodies of 15 Israeli captives have been returned to Israel. 13 uh bodies remain in Gaza. And after 30 more Palestinian bodies were returned to Gaza on Wednesday, that brought the number to 195 that had been returned from Israel. According to the Ministry of Health, there is no fixed timeline um for the exchange of bodies. Um it's obviously an extremely difficult task to find these bodies. They were killed by Israel in buildings that have been collapsed. And as we know, there's 10,000 Palestinians as well buried in the rubble. Uh, and that has been a central feature of Israel's genocide. So, there is no timeline on the return of the bodies, but the exchange rate is 15 to1. And we saw of the 195 bodies that have been returned, Palestinian bodies, um we saw them bound, tortured, executed, and in all manner of horrific conditions. Um the government media office also reports that less than 20% of the agreed upon aid has entered Gaza. Only a fraction of the cooking gas cooking gas had not entered uh at all since March. Um and a small amount has uh entered but not nearly what was agreed upon. Um and for their part, the Israeli prime minister said uh on Saturday on a popular talk show on his channel 14 um that the war is not over yet. There are a few more things that need to be done and we all know that. He said that on the Patriots on Saturday. IDF spokesperson Effie Daffron said, "We cannot live with Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip. If these goals are achieved through negotiation, that is enough. If not, we will fight. We will return to fight." And the defense minister, for his part, has instructed the IDF to prepare a comprehensive plan, quote unquote, to defeat Hamas um in the event of the renewal uh of the war. So, that just by way of introduction. Now, let's take a look at this key feature of the ceasefire agreement, which is this yellow line. We're looking here at a map that the Israelis released uh on the weekend. Um, and for people not looking at this uh not who are listening, um this is a map of Gaza that shows no place names at all. Uh it just has a yellow line that appears more or less arbitrarily drawn. Um, and there's no indication of what it corresponds to on the ground in Gaza, which is notable because it's creating a free fire zone in that entire red area. The sort of agreed upon amount of space that that yellow line um has is that Israel is under control of 53% of the Gaza Strip at this point. But this is the um like the um the map that was released by the Israeli military to tell people where uh they could not go. And you can see clearly on this map that that is um that this map lacks clarity. It's vague. Its fidelity uh is in question. So it's unclear. And this is after 2 years of genocide where Israel ran the genocide based on a grid map that broke down the Gaza Strip into hundreds and hundreds um of blocks where uh they would evacuate people from blocks. Um that was the way they carried out the ethnic cleansing. And so it's just a a pretty significant juxtaposition between um the detail of the genocide and then this shoot tokill line um that seems uh roughly randomly drawn. And the reason that it's randomly drawn is because it was effectively uh put together by Jared Kushner and Steve Witco for Trump during these negotiations. And it reads, and you'll see in the maps coming up, that they look like they're drawn on the back of a napkin, which matches um the way that Kushner and Witoff have spoken in the media about how this negotiation was essentially phone calls between um his rich real estate friends um or golfing friends. Um but yeah, what stands out is clearly uh the lack of demarcation. Um the Israeli Army radio commented on this and said that they had been interviewing soldiers and the soldiers um reported to army radio that the um the actual placement of the IDF outposts forward operating bases are considerably behind that line um in some cases several kilometers um away. So the Israelis have been building over this genocide and particularly over Gideon's chariots's uh operation have been destroying from the border out and they've made it a few kilometers as far as 3 kilometers in places from the border that have been destroy that have been destroyed. Um and this yellow line is in advance of those lines. So it's even more favorable to Israel. presumably um Trump doesn't know, Witco, Kushner don't know where those lines correspond to population centers and so they allowed the Israelis to draw the line and the Israelis drew the line um to take the maximum amount of area. Um the implication of this army radio set is that there are many areas that should be actually under IDF control but there is no forces there as there's position behind that yellow line. Um, but they use that line as a shoot tokill line as Norah said and as uh I just reported on the uh nearly 100 people that have been killed. Also based on these interviews with soldiers that are based in the outposts inside Gaza, Army Radio said that the soldiers told them at these posts that they report they are open to fire that they're they have free fire um uh directives meaning that there is no forces in front of them. This is how army radio interprets that which proves that the IDF has retreated much further than the yellow line. However, the thing that's notable uh to normal people who are not Israelis is that the soldiers have an open fire uh directive from those positions. Um let's take a look at this next map here. Um this is from Trump's initial um uh tweet what is it? truth truth out truth social whatever they call a truth social post. Um he put this map on there and you can see with this map um that the Israeli that the yellow line uh particularly up the spine of central Gaza and in the north follows along a key strategic ridge along that line. The Israelis call it ridge 70 because it's 70 m above sea level. I think we have another one that zooms in a little bit closer on on that that you can see there. That's the Shijaya neighborhood that Assam was just talking about. More than half of it is cut off and on the other side of the yellow line, but you can see that ridge line that runs uh across the top there of um between um the boundary of Gaza uh and Gaza City. and that is a strategic high point. Um, and that has been the gateway to Gaza for the last 5,000 years. Um, like I said, the IDF calls it ridge 70 because of its height. Um, Areronaut wrote that the control of that ridge um, grants dominance over the observation line and fire in both directions. Thus, one of the IDF's first moves in recent operations was establishing seven outposts, forward operating bases along it. Um, and the other day, um, Yedio Areronaut's military correspondent, uh, YoV Zatun wrote that, for example, the yellow line proposal, Israel's security buffer along the Gaza border has been doubled or even tripled in certain areas compared to its current configuration. Over the past year, most frontline IDF forward operating bases have been positioned 700 to 800 meters from the border. This distance was chosen for its topographical advantage. It allows forces to monitor and control ridge 70, which overlooks Gaza. It also on the other side of that is Nahul Az which was a key uh Israeli military base for the uh northern command of the Gaza division that was overrun in minutes by Kasam fighters from Shu Jaya. Um s Yedio's uh supposition is that since Israeli officials were involved in shaping the map, it's reasonable to assume that part of their intent was to preserve gains made by um the IDF during Operation Gideon's chariots part one. These include the flattening of thousands of buildings in the neighborhoods and villages near the buffer zone within 2 to three kilometers of the fence. Um we'll see that coming up in uh in other maps that I have here to show you this. But let's look at uh the Trump document. Um because this is what the maps were made of number three. And this is just um I don't know the most Trump kind of uh map here. It's literally drawn from the back of a napkin. It just has three random lines that don't correspond to population centers that don't uh show Israeli control. We're looking at a map that has um a blue line or purple line there. Um the Israeli military was never uh on that point. So that is not their uh position right now, which that map identifies as um the current IDF line of control. So it's a fictitious line there and at the top it's called Trump colon end of Gaza war. Um this map. So this is the map that is going to be uh what he talks about his 30,000year uh peace agreement is basically looks like it was drawn with crayons. Um it it's really remarkable. But you can see um where the roots of this were and then the Israelis took that proposal um and drew the maps where they wanted. So the way the proposal goes and by looking at this map, the initial line of withdrawal is the yellow line. In the first phase, Hamas is expected to release all remaining Israeli captives, both living and deceased, while Israeli forces pull back to the line designated as the yellow line on the map. And the second stage, which is the reason why we're going to focus on this yellow line, is because the second stage of this proposal, the ceasefire agreement, is extremely vague and um uh on the surface very unlikely. Um and so this yellow line may uh be something that we're following for many months to come. Uh but the second line is supposed to be uh during that phase. uh the second phase is when the international stabilization force uh comes into play but there's no timeline there's no exact boundaries there's no timing mechanism for the IDF withdrawals the international stabilization force doesn't exist um and it has deep implications for sovereignty for Palestinians um we know that the Israelis are already complaining about um that they don't want the tur the that tur didn't want Turkey involved uh in putting troops on the ground The resistance has been clear that there's no foreign force on the ground in Gaza. They've made that clear a number of times and this uh international uh security force um is devastating to Palestinian sovereignty. So, we'll see how that goes in uh future negotiations. Uh if we look now at number five, you can see the original map and this was the map that the Israelis this is being shown on Israeli television. Um yeah, that's right. number four being shown on Israeli television. Um, so this is the the version of the map. You can see it's different than the first map we showed. Um, because this was the map that was trying to show the Israeli population that they um that the Israeli military was still deep inside of Gaza, which was the terminology that Netanyahu wanted to spin for his victory, which everyone in Israel knows it's not a victory. Kasam was not defeated. Hamas was not defeated. the government was not defeated and the captives were not returned through force and violence. They were returned through a negotiation. Um that could have happened in early October if uh Netanyahu and the Israelis wanted that. Um but you can see here from the Israeli map on the outside, those are all the uh Gaza envelope settlements. They start from the bottom left on the border with Egypt. That's Karam Shalom. Uh and they go all the way up around uh Gaza. You can also see by this map how the Gaza envelope was built. You can see where the villages are. There's no villages behind those villages. All of the Gaza envelope kabuts are all part of a militarized border uh boundary around the Gaza Strip to keep uh Gazins inside Gaza. And that's what their plan was from 1948 when these uh kabuts were put into place. Um, so there's been a couple of media attempts to to make these maps based on um those ridiculous maps from Trump. Um, and let's take a look at number five. This was the BBC's effort. Um, and it shows a a bit of a deeper line in Conunus. The line in Kunis is not that far forward. The Israelis have truncated the Morag corridor and the Magen O corridor which they made a big fuss about during Gideon's chariots creating and the mass demolitions to create those uh lines are not actually in the map but you can see the buffer zone depth all around Gaza. And like Aam said this cuts off a number of people that live uh inside that red zone. But what is notable about it is that the vast majority of the population will be under uh Hamas rule inside those uh inside that buffer zone with the yellow line as a shoot tokill line. Um on Sunday the defense minister said that the major challenge for Israel after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas's terror tunnels in Gaza directly by the IDF and through in an international mechanism to be established under US leadership and supervision. Um he said that the I he has instructed the IDF to carry out to prepare to carry out that mission. So the yellow line will be a huge factor in that as well. If we look at the next map, Al Jazzer did another attempt uh to figure out where that map lined and actually put Palestinian communities um and locations on that map. So this is a much better map. They came up with 58% uh would be under Israeli control. Israel says it's about 53%. But this is the thing about buffer zones. They're elastic. Um, and everyone in Gaza knows, anyone who's visited Gaza knows, I know it very well from working there, um, that the buffer zones are elastic. They're not a fixed line on the ground and you can walk up to that line. They'll shoot you before that line and then that is a permanent feature of uh, living inside the Gaza ghetto. Um, but yeah, like I said, the Israelis seem to say that it's um, uh, 53% control. Um and that map shows in those areas that the Israeli forces will remain in parts uh in Bethanon entirely in part of Beth Lahyia in part of Shijaya at least um and on the edge of um Tufa and the Zetun neighborhoods in Gaza city. Um so if we look at the next uh slide, Israel had this was released by the defense minister um earlier this week um said that they were going to put out these markers on the uh yellow line that there's going to be these yellow signposts. Again, something people in Gaza know very well, people in the West Bank know very well because this is the beginning of what the checkpoints um used to look like. um these markers, although in the era of the checkpoints, they were uh tires and filled with concrete um to make these signposts, whereas this seems to be some kind of artist rendering of what these um signs are going to look like. Um but they're free fire zones and that is what the defense minister said that that um uh that anyone coming near these lines will be shot without question. Um, shoot first, ask questions later. Um, we can see in this next clip from the Israeli military of them installing these now along the line. So, you can see here an excavator um, bringing in the cement block and they're topping it off with a sign. Um, the defense minister said that any violation or attempt to cross the line will immediately be met with fire. This footage is from Monday and you can see in the open areas where this is um and that you can see sort of see um those or those yellow markers that are very difficult to see for the population. Um and they will be enforced through gunfire. Those concrete blocks are painted yellow. They're topped with a yellow metal sign. They're 3 and 1/2 mters tall. Um and they're being placed at a distance of 200 m from each other along the yellow line. Um so you can see here with this drone footage that the Israelis are showing um that this is farmland. Um this is in the north here and this these are destroyed groves of Betanoon and Baha the or um olive groves uh in particular up there that you can see. Um and all of this has been made possible which we'll see in the next slide by the eraser of Gaza. This is a map showing two years from October 2023 to October 2025. Satellite imagery from above. This is done by um Benion Males. He's an IDF adjacent mapper. He's mapping this trying to show the accomplishment um of that uh of that 2-year genocide. But if you watch it just one more time while it slides back across the screen, you can see along the border that the buffer zones are completely wiped out. And that was uh Israel's first intent was to pinch the buffer zones. And then once the world uh once they realized there was no red lines and the world was going to let them do whatever they wanted in Gaza, um then the uh the genocide spread from the border region all through out uh Gaza. So, just to show you that. And then this next slide shows you um what what an actual neighborhood looks like. This is Telis Sultan in western Rafa and the Saudi neighborhood. Um and you can see that there's literally not a single building untouched. People listening to this, we're looking at um basically ash and gray. Um but you can see the grid of the street. You can see where the houses were. You can see some houses partially standing but everything completely destroyed in Rafa and that's Israel's accomplishments uh in Rafa. They can't defeat the resistance. They can't defeat the Rafa brigade. Um but they could wipe out these u the entire city of Rafa with international support because there was no red lines. Um, also what this large buffer zone creates, so we can see on this next map, um, is it creates room for the militias to operate, the anti- the pro-Israel militias, the, uh, that work with the Israelis, um, the popular force popular forces of Yaser Abu Shabbab that are the most well-known. And you can see this map from, um, Sky News that shows um, the route in from Karam Shalom crossing where aid would come in. That's the only road that is functional and it runs right through Abu Shabbab's U warehouses and he him and his gangs would unload the trucks and take um the aid that was supposed to be for Palestinians um and they would sell it on the black market and drive up the price uh on the black market. Um, obviously these Israeli collaborators are deeply unpopular in Gaza. Not just because they are aligned with the military that carried out the genocide, um, carried out the war of annihilation against them, but also because they stole that aid that was not Israel's to distribute. It's not aid from Israel. Um, it was a it's Palestinian right and it's Palestinian sovereignty to be in control of that aid, which they are in the um agreement. um the GHF um the massacre site um they're gone. They up and left in the middle of the night. Um but these gangs also drove up the price of the aid uh by stealing the aid shipments and put it on the black market and put it the products out of reach for almost anyone in Gaza. The resistance and uh ministry of the interior are offered a oneweek amnesty for these um gangs uh militias uh to turn in their weapons for amnesty. Um and that expired just the other day. Um but these groups should will pull and have withdrawn with the Israeli military behind this yellow line. Um, so you have uh Israelibbacked forces behind that yellow line, which is something that we'll uh have to keep our eyes on because if they were not behind that yellow line, um the resistance and uh security forces in Gaza would destroy these groups in a matter of hours um if they were not uh protected behind the shoot tokill line. Um, but on the one last map here, I'll show you a map that I've shown you a number of times during this war. This is the crop land map. And you can see if you follow that yellow line that we saw in the previous maps, you can see that virtually the entire crop land of Gaza is on the on the eastern side of the yellow line, on the Israeli side of the yellow line. So self-sufficiency in Gaza is going to be limited deeply by this line. Um, we know that 86% from this map, this is the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, they put the number at 86% of of crop land being destroyed. Um, and this map is made from UNISAT imaging. Um, but the uh, Dropsite News spoke to Fiad Fiad. He is from the Palestine Olive Council in Gaza. And he told um the paper that um 1 million out of 1.1 million olive trees in Gaza were destroyed by Israeli forces. And what remains are not groves but scattered uh trees in areas. U these groves are primarily within that yellow uh line. So these are very significant uh sovereignty issues around that uh yellow line as well as um they're a line of death because they're a free fire line. Um and they enforce that line by firing at people who are approaching the line. So it's not just a fixed line. Um there's a buffer on the other side of the line and people in Gaza know that very well. Um so that's the yellow line. I wanted to get you guys uh an understanding of where that is in this deal because it looks like um it may be a feature uh for the next several weeks and months that we will be following. And I just want to wrap up here with um Abu Hamza. Uh we heard from the new spokesperson for Sarah Aluds. Um Abu Hamza is the nomair that um Saral Kuds uses for their spokespeople before and after Naji Abu Safe who is the Abu Hamza all throughout the war and he served from the great march of return um through the three wars uh before the Gaza war and all through the Gaza war. He was assassinated um uh on March 18th and that was the attack that Israel did in the middle of the night. Um the massacre in the middle of the night to break the ceasefire and everyone was at home with their families in their beds in the middle of the night. Um and the Israelis in a matter of minutes hit 80 civil infrastructure and governmental targets. Um more than 400 people were killed in their homes including 170 children because they were all at home asleep with their children. that includes Abu Hamza Naji Abu Safe who was killed along with his family, his wife, his brother and his brother's family. That attack in March was a cowardly attack even by the standards of Israel. Um so in this address Abu Hamza said yesterday Abu Hamza situated uh Saral Kuds as an integral part of the battle of Alaxa flood of course from the first hours a battle that they had trained for for years um and that was the most successful complex qualitative military operation in the history of the ArabIsraeli conflict. The performance of Gaza's fighters he said would go down in the annals of history of the national liberation movements in any era. He saluted the steadfastness and sacrifice of the people of Gaza who showed themselves as anchors on the land um and demonstrated to the world a liberation struggles resilience without whom there would be no resistance he said of the people of Gaza. He also said that the battle showed the true face of Israel to the world a bloody and racist army without morals or values led by a government of thugs. He said Saluds would never have left their positions in the battle, no matter how many years it lasted. He saluted the Yemenes for their support operations and unprecedented naval blockade. He acknowledged the people of Lebanon for their sacrifice and called uh Hezbollah their brothers in blood who paid an immeasurable price to support Gaza, giving a nod particularly to S. Hassan Nasallah. Uh he addressed the Iranians and their military leaders and scientists who he said were martyed on the road to Aluds. He gave a shout out of course as always to the resistance in the West Bank as well. Um and he expressed the group's deep appreciation for civil defense rescue teams who quote pulled hope from the rubble of death with their bare hands. I think something that we uh all of us watching this show have watched for the last two years. Civil defense do just that. Um he also gave a salute to the medical workers and media workers of all types across all platforms for bringing the message of Gaza to the world and also to the free people of the world who stood up and spoke up and demonstrated for Palestine. He said that Saruds declares their adherence to the ceasefire agreement um negotiated at Charmeal Shake as long as the enemy does too. Um and on the topic of disarmament he said the resistance will continue as long as the oper the resistance will continue as long as the occupation remains. So that is the resistance report for day 748 of this war ceasefire day number 14.