The 'Yellow Line', established under President Donald Trump's 20-point plan to end the war, marked the area to which Israeli forces initially withdrew under the first phase of the ceasefire. Further withdrawals were expected gradually, but instead the military has seized more territory.
On Sunday, Israeli forces moved yellow concrete blocks dozens of metres west in Shujayea, a neighbourhood in southeastern Gaza City, forcing Palestinian families to flee and bringing more of the neighbourhood under military control.
More than 90 percent of Gaza's population of 2.1 million has been forcibly displaced since the war began on 7 October 2023, after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. Gaza, a territory of about 365 square kilometres, was already among the most densely populated places on Earth, with roughly 6,000 people per square kilometre.
Even before the war, Israel enforced a buffer zone along the fence with Gaza that restricted access to land and farmland. In 2010, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated the restricted area covered 17 percent of Gaza's land and 35 percent of its farmland. Gaza has been under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007.
"It's not simply about where the 'Yellow Line' is today but where it can move next," Al Jazeera's Ibrahim al-Khalili said, reporting from Gaza City. "For families who have been repeatedly displaced in the past three years, the situation remains dire, and they have to make the impossible decision of where they can go."