Israel’s shifting Yellow Line has, according to humanitarian agencies and researchers, steadily reduced the territory available to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since a United States-brokered ‘ceasefire’. Nearly two-thirds of Gaza is now under Israeli military control or subject to access limits, and mapping shows the Yellow Line has moved westward, tightening restrictions across the enclave.
Reporting from Gaza City, a correspondent described families repeatedly uprooted as concrete markers are relocated. On Sunday, Israeli forces moved yellow blocks several dozen metres west in Shujayea in southeastern Gaza City, prompting residents to flee and extending areas under Israeli control.
“It’s not simply about where the Yellow Line is today but where it can move next,” a journalist in Gaza City said. “For families who have been repeatedly displaced in the past three years, the situation remains dire.”
More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.1 million people have been displaced by the war that Israel launched on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. Analysts and aid agencies say Israel has continued to demolish structures in areas it holds, while shifting the boundary line and adding new restricted zones.
Gaza before the war
Before the conflict, Palestinians lived throughout the 365sq km (141sq-mile) Gaza Strip, which is roughly 41km (25 miles) long and 6km to 12km (4 to 7 miles) wide. With about 6,000 people per square kilometre, Gaza ranked among the most densely populated places in the world. On average, each resident had around 160sq metres (1,722sq ft) of land.
Even then, access was constrained. Israel enforced a buffer area along the perimeter fence where Palestinians risked being shot if they approached. In 2010, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated this zone covered 17 percent of Gaza’s land and 35 percent of farmland. The territory has been under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007.
Gaza at the ‘ceasefire’
Under the first phase of the ‘ceasefire’, Israeli forces were to pull back to the Yellow Line within 24 hours, followed by a 72-hour period for the handover of Israeli captives. The line, first mapped publicly by then–US President Donald Trump, left Israel in control of 53 percent of the Strip, largely farmland and border tracts in the east, and confined Palestinians to the remaining 47 percent, about 172sq km (66sq miles).
By October 2025, two years of war had killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, and many others had departed the territory, leaving a population of about 2.1 million. Compressed into less than half of Gaza under the ‘ceasefire’, population density doubled to roughly 12,000 people per square kilometre, similar to New York City. Each person had about 82sq metres (883sq ft).
Gaza today and the Yellow Line
Since the ‘ceasefire’, Israeli forces have repeatedly shifted the Yellow Line’s concrete markers farther west, sometimes overnight, increasing the area under their control. Satellite imagery has documented ongoing demolitions in Israeli-held zones. The research group Forensic Architecture estimated Israel controlled 58 percent of Gaza by December. In March, the Israeli military shared with aid agencies maps of an ‘orange line’, a further restricted belt beyond the Yellow Line where movements must be coordinated with the army.
OCHA now assesses that restrictions apply to 65 percent of Gaza. A UN official told the Security Council in June that Israel itself said it controls about 70 percent of the territory. That leaves approximately 2.1 million people in the remaining 35 percent, around 128sq km (49sq miles). Density has nearly tripled since before the war to roughly 16,000 people per square kilometre, approaching central Tokyo.
On a per-person basis, about 61sq metres (657sq ft) of land remains for everything from shelter and roads to schools, hospitals and agriculture. The UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) reports that 82 percent of structures across Gaza are damaged or destroyed. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says only 3 percent of cropland is both intact and accessible.
OCHA describes the remaining 35 percent as already overcrowded, with access limits complicating efforts to move families before the rainy season. The UN estimates more than 950,000 people are in displacement sites vulnerable to flooding, most in tents or makeshift shelters. The WHO warns of devastating consequences from Gaza aid delays as humanitarian conditions deteriorate.
Approaching the Yellow Line can be lethal. Israeli forces treat areas beyond it as a free-fire zone, and Palestinians who near the boundary have been shot. Nearly 1,500 people have been killed across Gaza since the ‘ceasefire’ was announced, according to humanitarian and monitoring groups.