While the IDF appears to have established enough control in the area to travel in lightly armoured vehicles, heavy fighting has also persisted in the area between IDF troops and Hamas fighters.
Videos posted by Hamas fighters show clashes with IDF tanks in the area around the dividing line.
Experts disagree over how long the new partition might be intended to remain in place. Dr Hellyer suggested that it could form the basis of plan to expel Palestinians from the area permanently.
"Personally I think they're going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months," he said. "They won't call them settlements. To begin with they'll call them outposts or whatever, but that's what they'll be and they'll grow from there."
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that troops should occupy Gaza and "encourage" about half of Palestinian civilians to leave the territory within two years.
But the Israeli government denies that it plans to build settlements in Gaza once the war ends, and Dr Hecht dismissed such suggestions as nothing more than a "dream" for some ultranationalist ministers.
"All three corridors (Philadelphi in the south, Netzarim just south of Gaza City and the new one just north of Gaza City) are for control purposes," Dr Hecht said.
"The duration of their existence depends on when the war ends and in what manner it ends.”