Nearly a year into the Gaza ceasefire, a CBC News investigation has found that Israel continues to claim more territory inside the enclave. The military front that was supposed to remain frozen after a deal was reached last October has not stayed still. Instead, according to the investigation, the line keeps advancing, steadily pushing Palestinians toward the Mediterranean coast.
At the centre of the story is what is known as the yellow line. Under the peace agreement reached last October, Israel agreed to pull its troops back behind that line and to keep control of less than 50 percent of the territory along its border with Gaza. The line was meant to mark a fixed limit, a frozen front that both sides could rely on as the fighting paused.
The CBC investigation found that the reality on the ground has diverged sharply from that commitment. Israel's army now controls more than 60 percent of the territory, well beyond the under-half figure it had agreed to. The military says the expanded control is necessary for operational security, framing the additional ground as a buffer rather than a breach of the deal.
Much of the evidence for the creeping advance is visible in the yellow cement markers that trace the line. Residents say they regularly wake up to find the markers nudged meters, and sometimes hundreds of meters, closer to their homes, with Israeli forces not far behind. On Saladin Street in Gaza City, one resident, Hala Mustaha, described seeing that the stones had simply moved. In some cases the markers now sit right next to people's houses.
The investigation drew on more than eyewitness accounts. Publicly available imagery confirms the constant growth along the line, which stretches about 45 kilometres. That independent visual record underpins the finding that the front has expanded rather than held, giving a measurable shape to what residents describe experiencing day to day along the boundary.
For Palestinians living near the line, the advance translates into repeated upheaval. Tens of thousands of displaced Gazans are in a steady westward exodus toward the sea. One resident recounted having to move his family four times, saying tanks came day after day to shoot and that Apache helicopters later sent bullets flying into their house. Another, Dawlah, spoke of a panic that is hard to imagine for those outside it.
The broader toll is one of exhaustion and wariness. Some two million Palestinians have been on the move regularly for more than two years, and even peaceful pauses bring little relief. On the beach, Tamar al-Sheikh said the war has taught people to be afraid of hope, noting that many truces have come and gone while the conflict, and the airstrikes, continue into a third summer.