 During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the railway was severed at the Gaza Strip border, and the southernmost station which remained accessible to Israel Railways was Dayr Sunayd near the kibbutz Yad Mordechai.The passenger service on the line stopped, but freight service continued on the whole stretch between Lod and Majdal.During the bus drivers' strike in 1956, the passenger service on the line was reinstated just for the few days of the strike; then again, for the short time between 1972 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, passenger service was introduced between the Israeli-occupied Gaza City and Tel Aviv.