It is under this corridor between Egypt and Gaza that Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists have dug hundreds of tunnels through which they smuggle their Iranian made missiles and other lethal weapons into Gaza.

On August 23, 2011, I wrote an article titled: "The Philadelphi Corridor: Take it Back, Israel, and Soon."

Many years have passed since that article was first published in the Israel National News website and enormous quantities of Iranian missiles—all increasingly lethal—have flooded into Gaza through the smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor. I had pleaded that Israel take back the strategic and vital Philadelphi Corridor, but to no avail.

Now, as Israel is growing closer to ridding the Hamas occupiers from Gaza, pressure by the Biden Administration, the U.N and the EU. for yet another imposed ceasefire may come into effect at this time of writing. This would be again the same perilous situation for Israel, leaving Hamas to gloat at surviving to commit another genocidal atrocity against Israel.

Since 2007 and before, the first of several Egyptian brokered ceasefires was accepted by Israel but immediately broken by Hamas, which launched salvos of missiles against Israeli towns and villages killing and maiming civilians. Rumors abounded at that time that Hamas sought a 10-year hudna—another bogus ceasefire—complete with outrageous demands and conditions. But as surely as night follows day, Hamas always attacks again and again when it deems the moment is favorable to it. This will only stop once and for all when Hamas is totally uprooted from its malign occupation of the Gaza Strip. But President Biden is hardening his pressure upon the embattled Jewish state.

That earlier rumored ceasefire was based on the ten-year treaty of Hudaibiya which was ratified between Muhammad and the Quraish tribe in Mecca in the year 628. Ten years is the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at a spurious peace with those they call “infidels”. This is based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the 10-year treaty after only two years. The sole function of the “peace-treaty” (hudna) is always to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup for renewed offensives.

Muhammad is quoted in the Hadith saying: “If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath.”

It is helpful to be aware of relatively recent history to better understand what is going on now. Ever since Egypt invaded and occupied Gaza in the 1948 Arab-Israel War, the area has been a perilous finger of death pointing into the very heart of the Jewish state.

In subsequent years, Arab terrorists (fedayeen) from Gaza infiltrated as far north as Rehovot and beyond, murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians including children.

In October 1956, Israel finally struck back against the Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip and the terrorist bases during the Sinai Campaign. But bowing to savage pressure from the United States Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, Israel withdrew from Sinai and Gaza. It was not until the 1967 Six Day War, however, that Jewish villages and farms were re-established and, in some instances such as Kfar Darom, reconstituted in the Gaza Strip.

But all this ended when the late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, drove the Jewish residents and farmers from Gaza in the vain hope that the Palestinian Arabs would live in peace next to Israel. Of course, they did not and anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear know that no Muslim entity will ever make a true and lasting peace with the Jewish state but will inevitably follow the Koranic example of Muhammed’s abrogation of the treaty of Hudaibiya.

Later still, under further U.S. pressure, especially from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sharon signed an agreement in Sep 2005, called "Agreed Arrangements," that withdrew Israeli forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-km long and 100-meter wide area between Gaza and Egypt.

It is under this corridor that Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist entities have dug hundreds of tunnels through which they smuggle their weapons into Gaza. The retreat from the Philadelphi Corridor at the urgings of Condoleeza Rice was one of many disastrous concessions and risks taken by Israeli leaders in their naïve search for peace with the Muslim and Arab world.

It was only a matter of time before Hamas, the little Muslim Brotherhood, evicted their Fatah rivals in a bloody coup in 2007. Hamas, with its charter calling for Israel’s extermination, has ruled the Gaza Strip since then, including occupying the Philadelphi Corridor.

As Israel endures its current act of Palestinian aggression by Hamas in Gaza, repossessing the Philadelphi Corridor is again a militarily and strategically wise decision. Doing so will no doubt evoke screams of rage from the morally compromised world, but then they will always condemn Israel however restrained the Jewish state acts. So, with that truism, it is surely better to be hung in the media and the international corridors of power as a wolf than a sheep.

Repossessing territory as punishment for Palestinian crimes and aggression is also a salutary move which strikes at the very heart of Islamic supremacy and expansionism.

It is just as much in Egypt’s best interests as well as Israel’s to frustrate Hamas aggression and so far, Egypt’s President al-Sisi, has shown no love for Hamas. It is Israel’s only hope of security to arbitrarily liberate and re-possess the narrow Philadelphi Corridor.

After all, should al-Sisi be overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood at some future time in the ever-shifting sands of Arab and Muslim internecine strife there would be no more need for smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian—Gaza border. Instead, endless fleets of trucks will bring into the Strip from Egypt—the big Muslim Brotherhood—the most sophisticated weapons and missiles needed for Hamas—the little Muslim Brotherhood. Only by repossessing the Philadelphi Corridor again can Israel hope to stem such a lethal tide.

Remember that when the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979, the 14 km long security and buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor was under Israel’s control. Its purpose was to prevent the illegal importation into the Gaza Strip from Egypt of weapons and terrorists to be used against Israel.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1995, allowed Israel to retain the security corridor along the border and it soon became apparent that Sinai Bedouin and the Palestinian Arabs were digging ever more sophisticated smuggling tunnels under it. But following the infamous and tragic disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and Condoleeza Rice’s subsequent urging, Israel foolishly gave up control of the Philadelphi Corridor to the Palestinian Authority in September of that year and was no longer able to monitor and destroy tunnels. Then two years later in 2007 Hamas defeated the PA in a bloody civil war, killed the PA supporters and began their malignant occupation of Gaza.

So, as I urged Israeli leaders as far back as August 23, 2011, liberate the Philadelphi Corridor, take it back and take it soon, for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the other haters of the Jewish state, should they be allowed to survive, neither sleep nor rest.

Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of the four-volume work, Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.