Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here’s what that means

Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here’s what that means
Trucks line up at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip after Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (AP)
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Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here’s what that means

Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here’s what that means
  • Hunger has been an issue throughout the war for Gaza’s over 2 million people, and some aid experts had warned of possible famine

Israel has cut off the entry of all food and other goods into Gaza in an echo of the siege it imposed in the earliest days of its war with Hamas. The United Nations and other humanitarian aid providers are sharply criticizing the decision and calling it a violation of international law.
“A tool of extortion,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said. “A reckless act of collective punishment,” Oxfam said. Key mediator Egypt accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon.”
Hunger has been an issue throughout the war for Gaza’s over 2 million people, and some aid experts had warned of possible famine. Now there is concern about losing the progress that experts reported under the past six weeks of a ceasefire.
Israel is trying to pressure the Hamas militant group to agree to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government describes as a US proposal to extend the ceasefire’s first phase instead of beginning negotiations on the far more difficult second phase. In phase two, Hamas would release the remaining living hostages in return for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire.
Here’s a look at what Israel’s decision means and the reactions.
No word from the US
The ceasefire’s first phase ended early Sunday. Minutes later, Israel said it supported a new proposal to extend that phase through the Jewish holiday of Passover in mid-April. It called the proposal a US one from Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. Israel also warned it could resume the war after the first phase if it believes negotiations are ineffective.
Negotiations on the second phase were meant to start a month ago, increasing the uncertainty around the fragile truce. Hamas has insisted that those talks begin.
Later Sunday, Israel announced the immediate cutoff of aid to Gaza.
The Trump administration has not issued a statement about Israel’s announcement or its decision to cut off aid. It’s also not clear when Witkoff will visit the Middle East again. He had been expected to visit last week.
The US under the Biden administration pressed Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, threatening to limit weapons support. Aid organizations repeatedly criticized Israeli restrictions on items entering the small coastal territory, while hundreds of trucks with aid at times waited to enter.
Israel says it has allowed in enough aid. It has blamed shortages on what it called the UN’s inability to distribute it, and accused Hamas militants of siphoning off aid.
For months before the ceasefire, some Palestinians reported limiting meals, searching through garbage and foraging for edible weeds as food supplies ran low.
600 trucks of aid a day
The ceasefire’s first phase took effect on Jan. 19 and allowed a surge of aid into Gaza. An average of 600 trucks with aid entered per day. Those daily 600 trucks of aid were meant to continue entering through all three phases of the ceasefire.
However, Hamas says less than 50 percent of the agreed-upon number of trucks carrying fuel, for generators and other uses, were allowed in. Hamas also says the entry of live animals and animal feed, key for food security, were denied entry.
Still, Palestinians in Gaza were able to stock up on some supplies. “The ceasefire brought some much-needed relief to Gaza, but it was far from enough to cover the immense needs,” the Norwegian Refugee Council said Sunday.
Israel’s announcement came hours after Muslims in Gaza marked the first breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadan, with long tables set for collective meals snaking through the rubble of war-destroyed buildings.
The sudden aid cutoff sent Palestinians hurrying to markets. Prices in Gaza “tripled immediately,” Mahmoud Shalabi, the Medical Aid for Palestinians’ deputy director of programs in northern Gaza, told The Associated Press.
Legal implications
Prominent in the immediate criticism of Israel’s aid cutoff were statements calling the decision a violation.
“International humanitarian law is clear: We must be allowed access to deliver vital lifesaving aid,” said the UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher.
Hours after Israel’s announcement, five non-governmental groups asked Israel’s Supreme Court for an interim order barring the state from preventing aid from entering Gaza, claiming the move violates Israel’s obligations under international law and amounts to a war crime: “These obligations cannot be condition on political considerations.”
Last year, the International Criminal Court said there was reason to believe Israel had used “starvation as a method of warfare” when it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. The allegation is also central to South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.
On Sunday, Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, said Israel as an occupying power has an “absolute duty” to facilitate humanitarian aid under the Geneva Conventions, and called Israel’s decision “a resumption of the war-crime starvation strategy” that led to the ICC warrant.


Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza

Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza
Updated 03 March 2025
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Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza

Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza
  • Summit focused on a plan to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and expel its residents
  • Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held separate meetings with Arab counterparts

CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers met behind closed doors in Cairo on Monday ahead of an extraordinary Arab League summit focused on a plan to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and expel its residents.
The ministers held a “preparatory and consultative” session centered on an Arab plan to reconstruct the war-battered enclave without displacing its 2.4 million residents, a source at the Arab League told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting was closed to the press, the source said, adding that the plan “would be presented to Arab leaders at Tuesday’s summit for approval.”
Ahead of the session, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held separate meetings with Arab counterparts, including from Jordan, Bahrain, Tunisia, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian top diplomat.
During the meetings, Abdelatty called for “moving forward with early recovery projects” in Gaza without displacing Palestinians, an Egyptian foreign ministry statement said.
Trump triggered global outrage when he floated a plan for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while forcing its Palestinian residents to relocate to Egypt and Jordan.
The plan has united Arab countries in opposition, with Riyadh hosting a consultative meeting of Arab leaders last month to discuss “joint efforts in support of the Palestinian cause.”
At a news conference in Cairo on Sunday, Abdelatty said the Gaza reconstruction plan was ready and would be presented to Arab leaders at the summit in Cairo for approval.
Trump has recently appeared to soften his stance on the plan.
“I think that’s a plan that really works, but I’m not forcing it,” Trump said. “I’m just gonna sit back and recommend it.”


World Court elects Judge Yugi Iwasawa as new president

The International Court of Justice said on Monday that Judge Yuji Iwasawa had been elected as its new president. (ICJ)
The International Court of Justice said on Monday that Judge Yuji Iwasawa had been elected as its new president. (ICJ)
Updated 03 March 2025
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World Court elects Judge Yugi Iwasawa as new president

The International Court of Justice said on Monday that Judge Yuji Iwasawa had been elected as its new president. (ICJ)
  • Nawaf Salam resigned in January to become Lebanon’s prime minister
  • ICJ recently gained global attention in the ongoing case surrounding genocide accusations against Israel in the Gaza war

AMSTERDAM: The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said on Monday that Judge Yuji Iwasawa had been elected as its new president to complete former president Nawaf Salam’s term that ends on February 5, 2027.
Salam resigned in January to become Lebanon’s prime minister.
Iwasawa, who is Japanese, has been a member of the World Court since 2018 and before that was a professor of international law at the University of Tokyo and chairperson of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
The ICJ, the UN’s highest court and based in The Hague, was established in 1945 to resolve disputes between states.
It recently gained global attention in the ongoing case surrounding genocide accusations against Israel — which it has denied — in the Gaza war.
In July, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation since the 1967 Middle East war of Palestinian territories and its settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were illegal and that it must withdraw as soon as possible.
For Palestinians and most of the international community, the settlements are considered illegal. Israel disputes this, citing the Jewish people’s historical, biblical and political links to the area as well as security considerations.


Israel clears another refugee camp as squeeze on West Bank tightens

Israel clears another refugee camp as squeeze on West Bank tightens
Updated 03 March 2025
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Israel clears another refugee camp as squeeze on West Bank tightens

Israel clears another refugee camp as squeeze on West Bank tightens
  • Nur Shams camp cleared in Israel’s latest demolition push
  • Tens of thousands of Palestinians evacuated
  • Israel says operation aims to crack down on militant groups

RAMALLAH: Israeli troops demolished houses and cleared a wide roadway through the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, in a weeks-long operation against militant groups.
The operation, during a fragile ceasefire in Gaza that has halted fighting there for the past six weeks, has forced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and emptied some of the biggest refugee camps in the northern West Bank in what some Palestinians see as a trial run for wider clearances later.
Nur Shams, outside the city of Tulkarm, is the latest camp to be virtually emptied of its inhabitants following a camp in the volatile city of Jenin to the east and a separate camp within Tulkarm itself.
Residents say bulldozers have been clearing a broad roadway through the area where houses once stood to create easy access for military vehicles, continuing one of the Israeli military’s biggest operations in the West Bank for years.
Of the usual population of some 13,000, almost none was left inside the main camp, said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee.
“There were about 3,000 people left in the camp and as of today, they have all left,” he said. “There are still some people just outside on the outskirts but there is no one left in the camp.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has previously said its operation aims to root out fighters from Iranian-backed militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that have established strongholds in the camps of the northern West Bank.
At least 12 people have been killed in Tulkarm during the operation, including both armed militants and civilians, according to Palestinian health officials.
The Israeli military said it had made hundreds of arrests in the northern West Bank over recent weeks, confiscating 120 weapons and destroying hundreds of explosive devices.
Gaza-style demolition
The military has denied issuing formal evacuation orders to residents of the camp, a crowded township housing descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were forced out in the 1948 war at the birth of the state of Israel.
But as in Jenin, residents have fled with whatever possessions they could carry in shopping bags or rucksacks as the Israeli bulldozers have demolished buildings and torn up roads, leaving the camp resembling the ruins of Gaza.
“People are leaving with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. They need food, clothing, baby milk, everything, Shawish said.
Shawish said the operation, which has coincided with Israeli moves to cut out the main United Nations Palestinian relief organization UNRWA by closing its headquarters in Jerusalem, appeared to be a test to prepare for similar moves against refugee camps across the whole of the West Bank.
“If it succeeds, they will export it to all the camps,” he said.
The operation has drawn widespread international criticism and comes amid heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
US President Donald Trump, who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital during his first term, has not yet indicated whether he would support annexation, a move that could complicate efforts to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia.
But he has already proposed moving Palestinians out of Gaza to make way for a US property development, and has said he will give his position on the West Bank, which the Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza, in the near future.
For Palestinians, such talk has revived memories of the ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe when some 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes after the 1948 war and became refugees.


Israeli fire kills two Palestinians in Gaza amid impasse over ceasefire

Israeli fire kills two Palestinians in Gaza amid impasse over ceasefire
Updated 03 March 2025
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Israeli fire kills two Palestinians in Gaza amid impasse over ceasefire

Israeli fire kills two Palestinians in Gaza amid impasse over ceasefire
  • Mediators make effort to salvage the ceasefire deal
  • Israel imposes blockade on all supplies to Gaza

CAIRO: Israeli fire killed at least two people in Rafah and injured three others in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, raising fear among Palestinians that the ceasefire could collapse altogether after Israel imposed a total blockade on the shattered enclave.
A first phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas that began in January ended over the weekend with no agreement on what will happen next.
Hamas says an agreed second phase must now begin, leading to a permanent Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war. Israel has instead offered a temporary extension into April, with Hamas to release more hostages in return for Palestinian detainees, without immediate talks on Gaza’s future.
Two Israeli government officials said mediators had asked Israel for a few more days to resolve the standoff.
Israel raised the stakes on Sunday by imposing a total blockade on all supplies, including food and fuel, to sustain the 2.3 million Gazans living among the ruins after the 15-month conflict.
Hundreds of lorries carrying supplies were backed up in Egypt, denied permission to enter. Gaza residents said shops had been swiftly emptied of all supplies and the price of a sack of flour had more than doubled overnight.
“Where will our food come from?” said Salah Al-Hajj Hassan, a resident in Jabalia, on Gaza’s northern edge where families have returned to destroyed homes to live in the rubble. “We are dying, and we don’t want war or the alarm bells of displacement or the alarm bells of starving our children.”
TANKS FIRING
Residents said Israeli tanks stationed near the eastern and southern borders of Gaza intensified gunfire and tank shelling into the outskirts throughout the night, raising fears among the population that fighting could resume.
A Palestinian official with a group allied to Hamas told Reuters a state of alert had been declared among fighters.
At least two people were killed by an Israeli drone fire in Rafah, and three people were wounded by a helicopter that fired on Khan Younis, medics said.
In a statement, the Israeli military said its forces fired at a motorboat in the coastal area of Khan Younis, violating security restrictions in the area and posing a threat.
The military said in another incident in southern Gaza, its forces identified two suspects who were moving toward them and posing a threat. Israeli forces “fired at the suspects to eliminate the threat and identified casualties,” it said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday it had adopted a proposal by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, for a temporary ceasefire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Jewish feast of Passover, ending around April 20.
The truce would be conditional on Hamas releasing half of the remaining living and dead hostages on the first day, with the remainder released at the conclusion if an agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas says it is committed to the originally agreed ceasefire that had been scheduled to move into a second phase, with negotiations aimed at a permanent end to the war, and hostages could be released only under that plan.
FOOD PRICES SURGE
The Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry called on residents to provide information about merchants raising food prices in the wake of the new blockade.
Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza businessman, said that with shops suddenly empty, the price of a sack of flour had risen to 100 shekels ($28) from 40 shekels. Prices for cooking oil, fuel, and vegetables had also surged.
“It is catastrophic and things might become worse if the ceasefire isn’t resumed or there is no intervention by the local authorities against greedy merchants,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
Salama Marouf, head of the Gaza government media office, urged Gazans not to panic, saying there was enough food in markets for at least two weeks. The economy ministry had initiated an effort to compel merchants not to increase prices.
“There are pressures to compel the occupation (Israel) to commit to the ceasefire agreement and to reopen the crossing,” said Marouf in a statement on Monday.
Israel’s onslaught has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, and displaced most of the population.
The war began when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Fifty-nine hostages are believed to remain in Gaza. 


One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders

One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders
Updated 03 March 2025
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One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders

One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders
  • First responders said a victim of a stabbing attack on Sunday in the Israeli city of Haifa has died, with three other wounded in serious condition, and one in moderate condition

JERUSALEM: A stabbing attack at a transport station in the Israeli city of Haifa left one person dead and several wounded on Monday, medics said, in what police called a "terror attack" whose perpetrator was killed.
It was the first fatal attack in Israel since a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip on January 19 between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The attack came as negotiations between the two sides stalled after the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire ended at the weekend.
Medical teams "have pronounced the death of a man around 70 years old and are providing medical treatment to and evacuating four injured individuals", Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service said.
It said a man and woman around 30 years of age as well as a 15-year-old boy were seriously injured.
Israeli police label as "terror" attacks those connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but they have yet to confirm the identity of the perpetrator in Monday's attack.
Police had originally reported the attack as a shooting.
AFP journalists who arrived after the wounded were evacuated saw the attacker's body on the ground under a blanket.
The attack took place at a bus and train station in Haifa, a large coastal city in northern Israel home to a mixed Jewish and Arab population.
Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Sunday after a disagreement with Hamas over extending the ceasefire.