UK “deeply concerned” about Israel’s cutting off electricity supply & warns it “risks breaching international law”
By Abdul Adil & Ahmed J Versi
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
GAZA
UK is “deeply concerned” about Israel’s cutting off the electricity supply to Gaza Strip and “risks breaching international law”, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Spokesman told The Muslim News Monday.
“As with the situation on aid last week, we’re deeply concerned by these reports and urge Israel to lift these restrictions. Our position is that humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool. We called on Israel to abide by its international obligations to ensure full, rapid, safe and unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance to the population in Gaza,” said PM’s Spokesman.
Meanwile, UN Human Rights office has condemned Israel’s move. “A halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, including basic needs such as electricity, risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law,” and “Israel’s decision to completely halt all aid into Gaza is unacceptable and goes against its international law obligations,” the UN Human Rights Office said Monday.
“It is already having negative impacts on the ground, with the prices of basic goods spiking and anxiety as to future access to lifesaving essentials spreading in Gaza,” UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told Anadolu.
He said the humanitarian community must be allowed to deliver vital lifesaving aid into and within Gaza without hindrance.
“Denial of the entry of the necessities of life intended to pressure a party in armed conflict through hardship imposed on the civilian population as a whole raises serious concerns of collective punishment,” he said.
“We must not see a return to hunger and starvation.”
Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says the UN chief is “concerned” about Israel’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza.
“This latest decision will substantially reduce the availability of drinking water in the Gaza Strip,” Dujarric told reporters.
“Starting today, the facility is set to run on backup generators, which will reduce the water production capacity. Restoring this connection is vital for tens of thousands of families and children.”
Francesa Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, says Israel’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza means “no functioning desalination stations, ergo: no clean water”.
She added that countries that are yet to impose sanctions or an arms embargo on Israel are “AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the most preventable genocides of our history”.
Ahmed Alrobai, the head manager of the South Gaza Desalination Plant, has warned of the dangers following Israel’s cut in the electricity supply to the vital facility, which could deprive hundreds of thousands of people of clean water.
“Now we depend on generators that are not in the best condition because they have been operating since the war broke out,” he said.
“They haven’t been maintained properly due to a lack of necessary spare parts and therefore these generators could stop working at any time.”
A power cut by Israel to the Gaza Strip will worsen a water crisis in the Palestinian enclave, a local official warned on Monday.
Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza on Sunday, in the latest move to tighten a stifling blockade on the enclave despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
It followed an Israeli decision last week to stop humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, prompting warnings from local and human rights groups of a return to widespread hunger for the Palestinian population.
“Cutting off electricity to Gaza’s desalination plant reduces fresh water reaching central and southern Gaza by 70%,” said Nizar Ayyash, who heads Deir al-Balah Municipality in central Gaza.
He said eight out of 19 water wells in Deir al-Balah have stopped operation due to Israeli bombardment.
Meanwhile, several Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike on Monday evening, targeting an area north of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, pushing the overall death toll from Israel’s war n Gaza since October 2023 to 48,467, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
According to local sources, at least two people were killed and several others sustained varying degrees of injury when an Israeli drone struck near Wadi Abu Qatrun, northeast of the camp.
Although a ceasefire agreement came into effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of brutal Israeli bombings, Israel continues to violate the agreement by targeting civilians in the region almost every day.
The ministry said 16 more people were also injured, taking the number of the injured to 111,913 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the ministry said.
The Government Media Office updated its death toll to at least 61,709, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
In another attack, a Palestinian man was seriously injured by Israeli army fire in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah.
WEST BANK
A Palestinian Monday evening was killed in a ramming attack by an Israeli army vehicle in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, according to local sources.
They said that an Israeli army vehicle rammed into a Fathi Ahmad Salah, 32, who was driving his motorbike in the city, inflicting severe wounds across his body.
Salah was rushed to the Ibn Sina Hospital, where medics pronounced him dead shortly afterward.
Israeli occupation forces Monday evening ordered Palestinian families out of their houses in two neighborhoods of the city and refugee camp of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.
They said that the Israeli forces coerced families out of their houses in the Al-Hadaf neighborhood of the city shortly before the time of Iftar, and allowed other families until 7:30 PM to leave their houses in the same neighborhood.
Israeli occupation forces Monday detained three Palestinians near Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank, according to local and security sources.
They said that the Israeli forces rounded up a father along his son, identified as residents of the refugee camp, at the northern entrance of the camp.
Meanwhile, the occupation forces rounded up a young man after taking over his vehicle in the northern neighborhood of the city.
This came as additional reinforcements of infantry were dispatched to the city of Tulkarm and the adjoining two refugee camps, deploying along Nablus Street and in the vicinity of the houses which have already been occupied and turned into military outposts, stopping and inspecting passing vehicles, and thoroughly checking passengers’ identity cards.
The soldiers fired stun grenades at civilians in the northern neighborhood of the city, particularly in the vicinity of Shweika and al-Yunes Circles.
They broke into several houses in the Iktaba neighborhood, east of Tulkarm, conducting thorough searches and turning them upside down.
While inside one of the houses, the soldiers seized an amount of cash, jewelry, and a map of Palestine.
The Israeli army detained 762 Palestinians in military raids across the occupied West Bank in February, prisoners’ affairs groups said on Monday.
“The detainees included 19 women and 90 children,” the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
According to the statement, last month saw a surge in field interrogations as hundreds of Palestinians were interrogated by Israeli forces on the field.
The arrests came as the Israeli army has continued a deadly military offensive in the northern West Bank, killing at least 65 Palestinians and displacing thousands since Jan. 21.
According to Palestinian figures, Israel holds over 9,500 Palestinian detainees in its prisons, including 1,555 prisoners from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli tanks stormed the town of Wadi Burqin west of Jenin in the northern West Bank on Sunday, firing randomly as part of an ongoing military operation in Jenin city and its refugee camp.
The tanks entered the town from the Jenin camp and fired their machine guns indiscriminately before returning to the camp, witnesses told Anadolu.
Activists shared videos on social media showing the moment of the invasion, with the sound of gunfire heard, while other videos showed the tanks emitting thick smoke. According to witnesses, no injuries were reported from the gunfire.
Israeli occupation authorities demolished on Monday the foundations of a building in the town of Al-Auja, north of Jericho.
Thaer Nojoum, a human rights activist in Al-Auja and the Jordan Valley, told WAFA that the occupation forces, accompanied by bulldozers, demolished the foundations of a building under construction on Al-Auja Street, north of Jericho, owned by siblings Faisal and Ayman Abu Jarhoud, residents of the town.
The home demolitions are part of a systematic policy aimed at displacing Palestinians from their lands and depriving them of their rights to live in dignity on their lands.
In February, the occupation authorities carried out 79 demolition operations that affected 156 facilities, including 109 inhabited homes, 5 uninhabited ones, and 34 agricultural facilities and others. The demolition was concentrated in the governorates of Hebron with the demolition of 55 facilities, then Jenin with 26, Jerusalem with 19, and Salfit with 15.
LEBANON
The Lebanese army confirmed on Monday that a soldier was injured and kidnapped by the Israeli army in southern Lebanon.
In a statement, the army said that it had lost contact with one of its soldiers in the border town of Kfar Shouba on Sunday.
The army said the soldier was in civilian clothing when he was shot and injured by Israeli forces before being taken into Israel.
The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar earlier reported that the soldier was injured by Israeli army fire near the Shanouh Farm on the outskirts of Kfar Shouba town, before he was taken into Israel.
“The soldier’s family awaits his transfer by Israel to the UN peacekeeping mission (UNIFIL),” well-placed sources said.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Lebanon since Nov. 27, ending months of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated into a full-scale conflict last September.
Lebanese authorities have reported nearly 1,100 Israeli violations of the ceasefire, including the deaths of at least 85 people and injuries to more than 280 others.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was supposed to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon by Jan. 26, but the deadline was extended to Feb. 18 after Israel refused to comply. It still maintains a military presence at five border outposts.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem vowed to “confront” Israel if its occupation of southern Lebanon continues.
“We adhered to the (ceasefire) agreement while the enemy violated it… and attacked people far from the border in their civilian cars and in their homes,” Qassem told Al-Manar TV on Sunday evening.
“If the Israeli occupation persists, it must be confronted by the army, the people, and the resistance, while some want liberation through diplomacy,” he said.
“The resistance will not stop and will not abandon its capabilities in the face of Israeli aggression and occupation,” the Hezbollah leader said.
[Photo: Charitable organizations distribute food to Palestinians in Deir Al Balah in the Gaza Strip, on the tenth day of Ramadan, on March 10, 2025. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that he had decided to stop the entry of all humanitarian aid supplies into the Gaza Strip. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra/AA]
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