Arab states and UN condemn Gaza aid blockade by Israel

Many Arab countries and the United Nations condemned Israel for preventing the entry of all humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

Egypt and Qatar said that the Israeli move on Sunday violated the ceasefire deal, while Tom Fletcher described it as “worrying”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country acted because Hamas was stealing and using it to “finance the terrorist machine.”

He also accused the Palestinian group of rejecting an American proposal to extend the ceasefire in Gaza, after its expiration on Saturday. Israel said it had agreed to the proposal.

A Hamas spokesman said that the siege of Israel was “cheap blackmail” and “coup” against the ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire deal arrested 15 months of fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army, allowing the release of 33 Israeli hostages to about 1900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Qatar said it “strongly condemns” the Israeli decision, describing it as “a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement” and “international humanitarian law”.

In Egypt, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Israel of using hunger as a “weapon against the Palestinian people,” according to Agence France -Presse.

Both Qatar and Egypt helped mediate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

At the same time, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expressed its “condemnation and condemnation” of the Israeli siege.

Tom Fletcher, the United Nations for Humanitarian Affairs General Affairs, wrote in a publication on X: “International humanitarian law is clear: We must be allowed to reach vital assistance to save life.”

Netanyahu said that Israel decided to act “because Hamas is stealing supplies and preventing the Gaza people from obtaining it.

“It uses this supplies to finance its terrorist machine, which aims directly to Israel and our civilians, and this cannot accept it.”

Hamas previously denied the theft of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Netanyahu also said that Hamas refused to accept a temporary extension of the ceasefire, which was proposed by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Whitkov.

The first stage of the ceasefire entered January 19 and ended in midnight Saturday.

The negotiations on the second stage, which aimed at a permanent ceasefire, were scheduled to start, and to release all the remaining living hostages and withdraw the Israeli forces from Gaza, but hardly started.

It is believed that 24 hostages are alive, with 39 others supposed to be dead.

The third stage aims to return all the remaining bodies of dead hostages and rebuild Gaza, which is expected to take years.

Hamas has already said that it would not agree to any extension of the first stage without guarantees from the brokers that will eventually happen from the second stage.

With the end of the first phase of the deal on Saturday, the Netanyahu office said that Israel agreed to a proposal and a severity of the ceasefire for six weeks during the Islamic month of the Jewish Passover periods.

If the negotiations at the end of this period reach a dead end, Israel will reserve the right to return to the war.

Witkoff did not make his proposal. According to Israel, you will start issuing half of all the hostages and the remaining dead.

Israel said that Wittouf suggested the temporary extension after it became convinced that more time is needed to try to meet the differences between Israel and Hamas in the conditions of ending the war.

Relief agencies confirmed that no auxiliary trucks were allowed to enter Gaza on Sunday morning.

Antoine Renard of the World Food Program (WFP) told BBC.

Thousands of trucks entered the Gaza Strip every week since it was agreed to a ceasefire in mid -January.

Relief agencies have been able to store supplies, which means that there is no immediate danger to the civilian population.

On Sunday, the paramedics said that four people were killed in Israeli raids on Gaza. The Israeli army said it attacked the people who were planting an explosive device in the northern region.

Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostages.

Israel responded with an air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip, during which at least 4,8365 people were killed, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in the region.