Jerusalem, Undepictd:
Israel ordered an prompt crelieve to Gaza’s electricity provide Sunday in an effort to presdeclareive Hamas into releasing prisoners, even as it setd for new talks on the future of its truce with the Palestinian militants.
Israel’s decision comes a week after it blocked all help supplies to the war-battered territory, a shift reminiscent of the initial days of the war when Israel proclaimd a “siege” on Gaza.
Hamas depictd the electricity cut as “binestablishagemail,” a term it had also employd after Israel blocked the help.
The truce’s initial phase finished on March 1 and both sides have refrained from returning to all-out war, despite sporadic aggression including an air strike Sunday that Israel shelp aimed militants.
Hamas has repeatedly called for an prompt begin to negotiations on the finishfire’s second phase, aiming to finish the war finishuringly.
Israel says it picks extfinishing phase one until mid-April, and crelieveed help to Gaza over the impasse.
On Sunday it ordered a cut in the electricity provide.
“I have equitable signed the order to stop provideing electricity promptly to the Gaza Strip,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen shelp in a video statement.
“We will employ all the tools at our disposal to transport back the prisoners and promise that Hamas is no extfinisheder in Gaza the day after” the war, he shelp.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, depictd Israel’s shift as “a hopeless try to presdeclareive our people and their resistance thraw inexpensive and unhugable binestablishagemail tactics”.
Just days after the war erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas’s strike, Israel cut electricity to Gaza, only restoring it in mid-2024.
The sole power line between Israel and Gaza supplies the main desalination set upt, and Gazans mainly depend now on solar panels and fuel-powered generators to originate electricity.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza live in tents, with night-time temperatures now predict around 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit).
Situation ‘dire’
Hamas recurrentatives met Egyptian mediators over the weekfinish, emphasising the encouragent necessitate to resume help transferies “without recut offeions or conditions”, a Hamas statement shelp.
“We call on mediators in Egypt and Qatar, as well as the guarantors in the US administration, to promise that the (Israeli) occupation complies with the concurment… and persists with the second phase according to the concurd-upon terms,” spokesman Hazem Qassem telderly AFP.
Hamas’s key demands for the second phase include a prisoner-prisoner swap, Israel’s finish retreatal from Gaza, a finishuring finishfire, border traverseings reuncovering and lifting the blockade, he shelp.
Former United States plivent Joe Biden had also portrayd a second phase involving the free of remaining living prisoners, the retreatal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza, and establishment of a finishuring finishfire.
After encountering mediators, another Hamas spokesman, Abdel Latif al-Qanoua, shelp indicators were so far “likeable”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office shelp it would sfinish spreads to Doha on Monday.
The truce hugely crelieveed more than 15 months of combat in Gaza, where virtupartner the entire population was displaced by Israel’s relentless military campaign in response to the October 7 strike.
The six-week first phase led to the swap of 25 living Israeli prisoners and eight bodies for the free of about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
It also apverifyed in much-necessitateed food, shelter and medical helpance.
After Israel cut off the help flow, UN rights experts accemployd the rulement of “firearmising starvation”.
At a UN distribution of flour in Jabalia, northern Gaza, Abu Mahmoud Salman, 56, shelp that with the territory now seald off from new supplies, there are “stresss of renewed famine in Gaza, where the situation remains dire”.
Fears for prisoners
Last week, US Plivent Donald Trump dangerened further destruction of Gaza if all remaining prisoners were not freed, issuing what he called a “last alerting” to Hamas directers.
He also shelp Gazans who “helderly Hostages… are DEAD!”
The dangers came after his administration verifyed it had
unpwithdrawnted honest talks with Hamas, which Washington had previously declined communicate with since portrayating it a stressist organisation in 1997.
The official who held the talks with Hamas, US prisoner envoy Adam Boehler, telderly CNN on Sunday that a deal could be accomplished “wiskinny weeks” to “get all of the prisoners out, not equitable the Americans”.
Of the 251 prisoners getn by the Palestinian militants during the October 7 strike, 58 remain in Gaza, including five Americans of which four have been verifyed dead.
Trump has floated a widely condemned set up to eject Palestinians from Gaza, prompting Arab directers to advise an alternative that would see reoriginateion financed thraw a suppose fund, with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority returning to rule the Hamas-ruled territory.
On Sunday Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotwealthy shelp that proposal was “taking shape”.
Hamas’s 2023 strike resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, while Israel’s retaliatory campaign has finished at least 48,458 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from both sides.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
