Israeli fire killed at least two people in Rafah and wounded three others in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, raising fears among Palestinians that the ceasefire could collapse altogether after Israel imposed a total blockade on the shattered enclave.
Food, medicine and shelter stockpiles in Gaza were limited and aid intended for Palestinians in desperate need may spoil following Israel’s suspension of deliveries to the enclave, said humanitarian agencies on Monday.
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 5 February 2027.
Israeli fire kills two in Gaza amid impasse over ceasefire
Israeli fire killed at least two people in Rafah and wounded three others in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, raising fears 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.
Later on Monday, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said Israel’s demand to extend the first phase of the ceasefire was pushing things back to “square zero”.
“The mediators and guarantors bear full responsibility for preventing [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu from sabotaging all efforts made to reach the agreement and for protecting the agreement from collapsing,” Hamdan told a news conference.
Two Israeli government officials said mediators had asked Israel for a few more days to resolve the standoff.
“Israel has negotiated in good faith since the beginning of this administration to ensure the release of hostages held captive by Hamas terrorists,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes when asked about the aid blockade and ceasefire standoff.
“We will support their decision on next steps given Hamas has indicated it’s no longer interested in a negotiated ceasefire,” said Hughes.
Israel raised the stakes on Sunday by imposing a total blockade on all supplies, including food and fuel, meant 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 and 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?” asked 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.”
Residents said Israeli tanks stationed near the eastern and southern borders of Gaza intensified gunfire and tank shelling into the outskirts throughout the night.
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 Israeli drone fire in Rafah, and three people were wounded by a helicopter that fired on Khan Younis, said medics.
In a statement, the Israeli military said its forces fired at a motorboat in the coastal area of Khan Younis that was violating security restrictions and posing a threat.
The military said in another incident in southern Gaza, its forces identified two suspects who were moving towards them and posing a threat. Israeli forces “fired at the suspects to eliminate the threat and identified casualties”.
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 20 April.
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.
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.
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.
The subsequent Israeli campaign has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, displaced almost all of its 2.3 million population and left Gaza a wasteland.
Gaza aid stockpiles limited after Israel cuts flows
Food, medicine and shelter stockpiles in Gaza were limited and aid intended for Palestinians in desperate need may spoil following Israel’s suspension of deliveries to the enclave, said humanitarian agencies on Monday.
Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday as a standoff over the truce that has halted fighting for the past six weeks escalated.
“Much of what has come in over the past few weeks has already been distributed… Now, already we are seeing price increases,” a UN official in Gaza told Reuters.
The medical charity Médecins sans frontières (MSF) warned that the suspension of aid would add significant pressure on the two million Palestinians in the enclave who are still suffering from shortages of essential goods following 16 months of war. Israel has previously accused Hamas of hijacking aid, which the group denied.
“Any further challenges to access to food and access to clean water could have devastating consequences. The spike in food and good prices is creating fear and uncertainty,” Caroline Seguin, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza told Reuters.
Salama Marouf, head of the Gaza government media office, said enough food was in markets for at least two weeks and urged Gazans not to panic.
More than 300 trucks loaded with aid were stopped from crossing the border from Egypt on Sunday, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).
Its five warehouses in Egypt that stock food, water and medicines are currently at 50% capacity and expiry dates were being checked.
“We have warehouse capacity for now, but we cannot be sure how long that will continue,” operations coordinator for the IFRC in Egypt, Jurgen Hogl, told Reuters.
Medecins Sans Frontieres has 14 trucks of aid shipments in Egypt and Jordan, mainly medical supplies, waiting to be shipped into Gaza.
“We are concerned that if drug supplies would be maintained in trucks for months at end, and exposed to the sun, it could shorten the lifespan of medicines and decrease the efficiency of the drugs,” said Seguin.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned it could reach a point that agencies halt shipments of aid altogether, as was the case when aid was restricted at the beginning of the war.
“It’s costly for us to keep aid in warehouses or packed up on trucks, waiting in queues,” NRC spokesperson Shaina Low told Reuters.
World Court elects Judge Yuji Iwasawa as new president
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), 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 5 February 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.
Egypt’s alternative to Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ aims to sideline Hamas
A plan for Gaza drawn up by Egypt as a counter to Trump’s ambition for a Middle East Riviera would sideline Hamas and replace it with interim bodies controlled by Arab, Muslim and Western states, according to a draft seen by Reuters.
The Egyptian vision for Gaza, which is due to be presented at an Arab League summit on Tuesday, does not specify whether the proposal would be implemented before or after any permanent peace deal to end the war triggered by the 7 October 2023 attacks.
Trump’s plan, which envisioned clearing Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants, appeared to back away from long-standing US Middle East policy focused on a two-state solution and sparked anger among Palestinians and Arab nations.
Who will run Gaza after the conflict remains the great unanswered question in negotiations over the future of the enclave. Hamas has so far rejected the idea of any proposal being imposed on Palestinians by other states.
Cairo’s plan does not tackle critical issues such as who will foot the bill for Gaza’s reconstruction or outline any specific details around how Gaza would be governed, nor how an armed group as powerful as Hamas would be pushed aside.
Under the Egyptian plan, a Governance Assistance Mission would replace the Hamas-run government in Gaza for an unspecified interim period and would be responsible for humanitarian aid and for kick-starting reconstruction of the enclave, which has been devastated by the war.
“There will be no major international funding for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Gaza if Hamas remains the dominant and armed political element on the ground controlling local governance,” said a preamble outlining the draft Egyptian plan’s objectives.
The plan firmly rejects the US proposal for mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, which Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan see as a security threat.
“President Trump has been clear that Hamas cannot continue to govern Gaza,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes when asked about Egypt’s Gaza plan and whether the US would support it.
“While the president stands by his bold vision for a post-war Gaza, he welcomes input from our Arab partners in the region. It’s clear his proposals have driven the region to come to the table rather than allow this issue to devolve into further crisis,” said Hughes.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the group knew of no such proposal by Egypt.
“The day after in Gaza must only be decided by the Palestinians,” he said. “Hamas rejects any attempt to impose projects or any form of non-Palestinian administration, or the presence of any foreign forces on the land of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel clears another refugee camp as squeeze on West Bank tightens
Israeli troops demolished houses and cleared a wide roadway through the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, in a weekslong operation against militant groups that has forced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
The operation, during a fragile ceasefire in Gaza that has halted fighting there for the past six weeks, has 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 no one 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 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.
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,” said Shawish.
Shawish said the operation, which has coincided with Israeli moves to cut out the main United Nations Palestinian relief organisation 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 organised effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
One killed in stabbing attack in northern Israel
One person was killed and four were wounded in a stabbing attack at a bus station in the city of Haifa, said Israel’s ambulance service, in what police described as a terrorist attack.
Security guards shot and killed the assailant, said a police spokesperson. It was not immediately clear whether the man killed was stabbed by the assailant or shot by the guards.
Police said that the assailant was an Israeli citizen from a nearby Arab Druze town who had returned from abroad in May and that the attack was still being investigated.
Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the attack but did not claim it. DM
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