Israel has cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal.
The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday it was imposing a blockade on Gaza because Hamas would not accept a plan which it claimed had been put forward by the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend phase one of the ceasefire and continue to release hostages, and postpone phase two, which envisaged an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
“With the end of phase one of the hostage deal, and in light of Hamas’s refusal to accept the Witkoff outline for continuing talks – to which Israel agreed – Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease. Israel will not allow a ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” it said in a statement. “If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences.”
After the announcement, Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Omer Dostri, wrote in a social media post: “No trucks entered Gaza this morning, nor will they at this stage.”
The existence and details of a Witkoff plan had not been confirmed by Washington by Sunday morning. A statement from Hamas called the suspension of aid a “war crime” and a violation of the ceasefire agreement. It said Netanyahu’s “decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime and a blatant coup against the [ceasefire] agreement”.
During the 15 months of the Israel-Gaza war, the Netanyahu government repeatedly denied claims from aid agencies that it was blocking humanitarian deliveries, blaming the very limited flow on other factors. Before the ceasefire, UN officials had warned that widespread famine was imminent. In the six weeks of the first phase of the truce, deliveries returned to the prewar levels of about 600 trucks a day, mostly carrying food.
Aid officials said that even with the restoration of food deliveries, the lack of drinkable water, the near complete destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics, the lack of shelter in the midst of winter, and the buildup of untreated sewage among the rubble, could all be lethal to the surviving 2.2 million population.
Netanyahu made his announcement, which his office claimed had US backing, after the breakdown of talks in Cairo aimed at maintaining the ceasefire as it approached the end of its first six-week phase, over whether the truce should advance to a second phase.
The prime minister’s office said earlier on Sunday that it agreed on the adoption of what it described as Witkoff’s proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, which end on 20 April, during which half of the living hostages and half of the bodies of those who have died would be released.
On the conclusion of that temporary extension, the statement said: “If agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, the remaining living and deceased hostages will be released.”
While the first phase of the ceasefire chiefly involved the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, an increase in aid deliveries and a retreat of Israeli troops from some positions, the second phase requires a complete Israeli withdrawal and a more enduring cessation of hostilities.
The Witkoff plan as described by Netanyahu’s office appeared similar to Israel’s proposal for a six-week extension of the first phase of the ceasefire, with hostage releases, but it made no mention of the troop withdrawal that was part of the original truce agreement in January.
Hamas said the proposal made clear that Israel was seeking to disavow the deal it previously signed.
Hamas has not been directly participating in the talks in Cairo, but has been coordinating with Qatari and Egyptian officials who are at the negotiating table with US and Israeli delegations. The negotiators left Cairo on Friday night, and there was no sign of them reconvening late on Saturday.
An Israeli withdrawal would first involve a pullback from the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt but such a retreat could trigger the collapse of Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition, which would in turn force new elections, in which his political future would be uncertain.
Israeli political analysts have suggested that Netanyahu agreed to the ceasefire under pressure from Donald Trump, confident that the agreement would never reach a second phase. Since the start of the ceasefire, he prevented Israeli negotiators from discussing a second phase. Witkoff has, however, insisted that a second phase of the ceasefire deal should be implemented, to ensure the release of the remaining 59 hostages, only 25 of whom are thought to be still alive. Most Israelis also want the government to make a priority of freeing the hostages, but that position is opposed by the Israeli far right, without whom the coalition could not stay in power. The rightwing parties argue Israel’s priority should be the destruction of Hamas.
The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision to halt the flow of aid was “an important step in the right direction”.
Referring to Donald Trump’s earlier threat to open the “gates of hell” on Gaza, Smotrich said in a social media post: “Now we need to open these gates as quickly and deadly as possible on to the enemy, until complete victory.”
There remains no agreement on who should run Gaza once an enduring end to the war can be agreed. Trump caused consternation and bewilderment early in February with the shock suggestion that the US should “own” Gaza, which would be somehow emptied of its more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants to make way for a “Riviera on the Mediterranean”.
Article by:Source: Julian Borger in Jerusalem
