Israel’s energy minister said on Sunday that he was immediately cutting off electricity to the Gaza Strip, a move that may have limited impact in Gaza, given restrictions already in place, but that comes as Israel tries to pressure Hamas amid talks over their fragile truce.
“We will employ all the tools at our disposal so that all the hostages are returned, and we will ensure that Hamas does not remain in Gaza in the ‘day after,’” Eli Cohen, the Israeli energy minister, said in a statement on Sunday about his decision.
Both the fate of the approximately five dozen living and dead hostages remaining in Gaza and the enclave’s future governance are major sticking points in the cease-fire talks. Israel is insisting that Hamas can play no role in Gaza’s future; Hamas has said it may be willing to give up civilian governance, but has firmly rejected dissolving its military wing.
Mr. Cohen’s announcement came as negotiators and mediators prepared to discuss the cease-fire this week in Qatar. It follows Israel’s decision earlier this month to cut off humanitarian aid and supplies to Gaza after the first stage of the original phased cease-fire expired.
How meaningful the latest pressure on Hamas will be is unclear, given the severe restrictions that have already been placed on electricity supply to Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that ignited the war in the Palestinian enclave, and in light of Gazans’ longstanding reliance on alternative energy supplies because of prewar restrictions.
The decision’s clearest effect was the disconnection, once again, of a wastewater treatment plant in the enclave that had recently been operating on Israeli power.
The Israel Electric Corporation said on Sunday it was ordered to cut off the supply to that plant.
Israel will send a delegation to Qatar on Monday to advance cease-fire negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Saturday. President Trump’s nominee as special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, participated in talks last week with Hamas officials, focused on securing the release of Israeli Americans who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Only one of five Israeli Americans still held there is thought to be alive.
U.S. officials are expected in the region this week to continue talks that have also been mediated by officials from Egypt and Qatar. A Hamas delegation also met in recent days with Egyptian mediators.
In mid-January, after 15 months of devastating war, Israel and Hamas agreed to a complex, phased truce intended to free hostages taken from Israel and held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel, and to build momentum toward a comprehensive cease-fire.
But after the first phase ended on March 1 without an agreement on the next stage, Israel suggested another temporary extension of the cease-fire and exchange of hostages.
The Israeli government’s decision to cut off the extremely limited supply of electricity it had been providing to the Gaza Strip could affect the continuing discussions.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, condemned Israel’s decision to cut off electricity in a statement on Sunday, calling it a “waste of time.” He accused Mr. Netanyahu of trying to disrupt the cease-fire agreement and endangering the hostages, saying there is no way forward “but to commit to implementing the terms of the agreement and start negotiations for the second phase.”
As it stands, Palestinians in Gaza have been living in what is essentially a blackout since the war began. Before the war, years of conflict and an Israeli and Egyptian economic blockade imposed to weaken Hamas had left Gaza’s electrical grid weak, providing only limited hours of power each day. The territory had relied on a makeshift system, according to a 2023 report by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an Israeli think tank at Bar-Ilan University. Half of the electricity was generated in Israel and half in Gaza from various sources, including a diesel-fueled power plant and private generators, as well as solar panels.
Since the war began, some Palestinians have been able to turn to generators or solar power, but fuel for generators is also in very short supply and restricted by Israel. Israel has said that Hamas has stockpiled the fuel that has entered the territory for its own purposes, including for launching missiles.
Contributing reporting were Adam Rasgon, Johnatan Reiss, Abu Bakr Bashir and Liam Stack.