JERUSALEM — Israel announced Sunday that it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The full effects were not immediately clear, but the arid territory’s desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water.
Israel last week cut off all supplies of goods to the territory of over 2 million people, in an echo of the siege it imposed in the earliest days of its war with Hamas. It seeks to press the militant group 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 instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
Negotiations in Qatar
The militant group — which has warned that cutting off supplies to Gaza would affect the hostages as well — said Sunday that 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.
