TEL AVIV—Israel halted any entry of goods into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, signaling the start of a more aggressive phase of its war to destroy Hamas.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision was a response to Hamas’s rejection of a proposal by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to extend the phase one hostage-ceasefire deal that expired a day earlier. Israel had endorsed the proposal.
“Upon the conclusion of the first stage, and in light of Hamas’s rejection of the Witkoff framework, we decided at last night’s discussion that as of this morning, the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza will be prevented,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday. “If Hamas continues to stick to its position and does not release our hostages, there will be additional consequences, which I will not detail here.”
The blockade of Gaza is one of a series of escalatory steps that Israel, backed by President Donald Trump, is prepared to take to bring home the hostages and end Hamas’s control of Gaza, according to several current and former Israeli officials with knowledge of high-level discussions. Israel expects that it will ultimately have to take full military control of Gaza and is developing plans to do so starting in several weeks, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday.
The sources said that Israeli decision-makers expect Hamas to resist disarmament or exile—Israel’s conditions for moving on to phase two of the deal, which would end the war—and instead to fight to the end while holding some of the hostages as human shields and bargaining chips.
Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli military official who has advised the government and military during the 17-month Gaza war, predicted that Israel’s next steps in Gaza would be heavy airstrikes, followed by ground incursions, and finally a “decisive attack” to conquer the strip.
“It’s very hard to see Hamas simply giving up without further military pressure,” Avivi said. “I think the understanding overall in the military and government leadership is that we are going to full-scale war.”
Hezi Nehama, a former senior Israeli military official who served as a battalion commander in the war and has maintained close ties to the Israeli military’s Southern Command, told the Free Beacon, “Everybody understands that in the end, we will have to fight and to defeat Hamas.”
“And we understand that, unfortunately, some of the hostages—we won’t be able to bring them back,” he said.
Netanyahu said Israel was “not giving up on anyone” among the 59 hostages who remain in Gaza, as many as 24 of them alive, and would “immediately” return to negotiations if Hamas accepted Witkoff’s proposal.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s halt of humanitarian aid to Gaza was an “important step” toward opening “the gates of hell” on Gaza.
“Now we need to open these gates as quickly and fatally as possible to the cruel enemy, until complete victory,” he added. “We stayed in the government to ensure this, and so it will be in Gaza.”
Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Saturday that Southern Command is on high alert and preparing for a return to fighting on short notice. In recent days, Israeli troops have been training to retake the strategically important Netzarim Corridor and other areas of Gaza from which the military withdrew during the ceasefire and for the possible relocation of the civilian population from the north of the strip to humanitarian zones in the south, according to the report.
Two Israeli military divisions have deployed to Israel’s buffer zone inside the borders of Gaza, including the Philadelphi Corridor in the south.
Omer Dostri, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said on X that no aid trucks had been allowed to enter Gaza as of Sunday morning, “nor will they at this stage.” Tzav 9, a grassroots activist group that seeks to block humanitarian aid to Gaza, confirmed in a statement on Sunday that the main crossings into Gaza had been closed to the trucks.
Hamas on Sunday called Israel’s halt to humanitarian aid “a cheap act of extortion, a war crime, and a blatant violation of the agreement.” Egypt, which has served as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, on Sunday accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war.”
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said at a Sunday press conference in Jerusalem that the starvation of Gazans has been “a lie during this whole war,” adding, “We saw when our hostages were released, the terrorists and the crowd looked perfectly fine. The only ones that looked that they were starved were our hostages.”
The surge of humanitarian aid that entered Gaza during the ceasefire will last four to six months, the current and former officials told the Free Beacon, echoing Israeli media reports. Meanwhile, water and electricity have continued flowing to Gaza, Israeli media reported.
Saar also said that the Trump administration “accepts our stance and recognizes it.”
According to Israel, Witkoff proposed a 50-day extension of the first phase of the ceasefire to allow more time for deadlocked negotiations over a potential phase two, which would end the war. Under the plan, which had not previously been publicized, Hamas would release half of the remaining hostages held in Gaza on the first day of the extension and the rest on the final day if a second phase were agreed upon.
The Free Beacon previously reported that incoming Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, at the direction of Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz, has started developing the plan to return to war in Gaza. Initial steps include a cutoff of aid to Gaza, relocation of Gazan civilians to humanitarian zones in the south of the strip, and airstrikes on Hamas targets. The plan then calls for four or five divisions to conquer Gaza in six months or less.
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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