Israel to cut off electricity supply to Gaza, minister says
LIVE: Israel to cut electricity supply to Gaza ‘immediately’
Palestinian aunt raises sole survivor niece after entire family killed in airstrike
A military statement claims that troops shot at Palestinians who attempted to cross the fence in the Tarqumiya area in Hebron, occupied West Bank, confirming a number of causalities without giving any other details.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said earlier that one person was critically injured by Israeli army in the area.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says one person was shot near town of Tarqumiya in the occupied West Bank governorate.
In a brief statement on Telegram, the ministry said that the wounded Palestinian, who was injured in the abdomen, was transferred to al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron.
Hamas has accused Israel of “cheap and unacceptable blackmail” over its decision to halt the electricity supply to war-ravaged Gaza in an effort to pressure the group into releasing the captives.
“We strongly condemn the occupation’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water,” Ezzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau said in a statement, adding that it was “a desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance through cheap and unacceptable blackmail tactics”.
“Cutting off electricity, closing the crossings, stopping aid, relief and fuel, and starving our people, constitutes collective punishment and a full-fledged war crime,” al-Rishq added.
He accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting “to impose a new roadmap” that prioritises his personal interests.
Al Jazeera editor
Adam Boehler, the US hostage negotiations envoy who has been speaking to Hamas, has been explaining himself to Israel – but there has been some disquiet over what he has had to say.
Boehler said earlier today that the US was not “an agent of Israel”, and that Washington had its own “interests at play”, in explaining why talks were being conducted with Hamas over the release of captives held in Gaza, despite opposition from Israel.
Reports in Israeli media have emerged saying that Israeli minister Ron Dermer, who is close to Prime Minister Netanyahu, had conveyed Israel’s unhappiness with the situation to Boehler.
Speaking to Fox News, Boehler said that he had convinced Dermer that he “wouldn’t go off the rails”, and that Israel was being “kept informed” of the talks.
The talks between the US and Hamas add to the uncertainty of the Trump administration’s position towards Israel and Gaza, an unpredictability that has left Israel wary.
On the one hand, Trump has repeatedly backed Israel, threatened Gaza with a renewal of the war with full US support, and has also called for the US to takeover Gaza, displacing its Palestinian residents in the process. On the other hand, Trump pushed for a ceasefire deal to be agreed before he took office, and has now allowed his envoy to meet Hamas, despite the Israeli opposition.
Simon Harris – who served as Ireland’s prime minister until January – has voiced deep concern over Israel’s continued blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the cutting of electricity, warning that such actions will only worsen the already “horrific” humanitarian crisis.
“This is a very worrying and concerning development,” Harris stated. “Hostages must be released, aid must flow, and electricity supply is vital for any civilian population,” he posted on social media.
Daniel Lifshitz, whose deceased grandfather was held captive by Hamas, has called for the group’s complete demilitarisation as the only viable path to end the war in Gaza.
“We all think about how to release the hostages, how to maintain a ceasefire, and how to end the war,” he told Al Jazeera. “The only solution is to make sure that Hamas will demilitarise completely.”
“For me, my grandfather’s body returned, but he will never truly be returned until Hamas is gone,” he added.
Lifshitz said the best path forward for Palestinians is to transfer control of Gaza to another country, potentially Egypt.
Palestinians have repeatedly insisted that Gaza stay under Palestinian control, and that Israel end its decades-long illegal occupation of Gaza, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The US hostage envoy Adam Boehler has told Israel’s Channel 11 that Hamas has suggested an exchange of prisoners, as well as a five to ten year truce in which the Palestinian group “would lay down all weapons”, and not be involved in politics.
Boehler repeated some of those details in a series of interviews held with Israeli and US media outlets, after reports emerged of Israeli unhappiness with his unprecedented direct talks with Hamas.
Boehler also added that an “optimistic” scenario would see Israeli captives held in Gaza released in “weeks”.
Dr Christopher Holden, a volunteer foreign doctor working in Gaza City, says medical supplies are running low in the enclave, including essential supplies.
“We are running into a real and critical shortage in many sectors in healthcare,” the doctor with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association told Al Jazeera in Gaza City.
He also said that there have been recent frequent drone attacks in the area he has been working in.
“Two days ago, we had a six-year-old girl brought in. She was asleep in her tent because her home was destroyed with a loss of multiple family members,” Holden said.
The doctor said that she was attacked by a drone while sleeping in a tent with her father, damaging her eye and breaking some her bones.
He added that there had been no military activity in the area where the strike took place.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Sagui, who was released from Gaza last month, said that some Jewish organisations in North America had failed the captives by being unable to go against the Israeli government.
“History will also not look kindly on some, if not all, of the leaderships of major Jewish organisations, in North America certainly,” Dekel-Chen told The Jerusalem Post. “All of these organisations, all of them, were created for the betterment of the people of Israel; the people of Israel, not this or that politician of Israel.”
“In a perfect world, the biggest single advocate for the hostages, in action and not just lip service, would be the government of Israel. That simply hasn’t happened,” Dekel-Chen added. “As a result, hostage families themselves have had to take it on. Speaking as a historian of the Jewish people, history will not judge these leaders well for what they have already done and for what I fear they might continue to do.”
As we’ve been reporting – and despite the announcement from the Israeli energy minister today – Israel had already cut off almost all electricity from Gaza.
The Times of Israel is now reporting that the announcement that all electricity supplied from Israel will be cut will therefore only affect a single desalination plant in Deir el-Balah, according to an Israeli official. The tank serves more than 600,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Even power to that plant had been cut off after the beginning of the war in October 2023, but Israel announced in November 2024 that it was restoring power to the solitary plant.
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