Israel says it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza

JERUSALEM

Israel says it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The full effects of that are not immediately clear, but the territory's desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water.

Sunday’s announcement comes a week after Israel cut off all supplies of goods to the territory to over 2 million people. It has sought to press Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended last weekend. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Hamas has pressed to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase instead. The militant group on Sunday said it wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators without changes to its position, calling for an immediate start of the ceasefire's second phase.

The new letter from Israel's energy minister to the Israel Electric Corporation tells it to stop selling power to Gaza.

Gaza has been largely devastated by the war, and generators and solar panels are used for some of the power supply.

The ceasefire has paused the deadliest and most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The first phase allowed the return of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli forces have withdrawn to buffer zones inside Gaza, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the first time since early in the war and hundreds of trucks of aid entered per day until Israel suspended supplies.

Israeli tanks on Sunday stormed the town of Wadi Burqin, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank, firing randomly as part of an ongoing military operation in the city and its refugee camp.

The tanks entered the town from the Jenin camp and fired their machine guns indiscriminately before returning to the camp, witnesses told state-run Anadolu Agency.

Activists shared videos on social media showing the moment of the invasion, with the sound of gunfire heard, while other videos showed the tanks emitting thick smoke. According to witnesses, no injuries were reported from the gunfire.

On Feb. 23, Israeli tanks entered the Jenin camp in the first military escalation of its kind since 2002.

Local media and activists also shared videos showing Palestinian children throwing stones at the tanks.

The escalation came amid a deadly Israeli military onslaught in the northern West Bank since Jan. 21 which has killed more than 66 Palestinians and displaced thousands.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank, where at least 930 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the Oct. 7, 2023 onslaught on the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.