By CARA ANNA
Updated 4:10 PM EDT, March 2, 2025

Israel has cut off the entry of all food and other goods into Gaza in an echo of the siege it imposed in the earliest days of its war with Hamas. The United Nations and other humanitarian aid providers are sharply criticizing the decision and calling it a violation of international law.

“A tool of extortion,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said. “A reckless act of collective punishment,” Oxfam said. Key mediator Egypt accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon.”

Hunger has been an issue throughout the war for Gaza’s over 2 million people, and some aid experts had warned of possible famine. Now there is concern about losing the progress that experts reported under the past six weeks of a ceasefire.

Israel is trying to pressure the Hamas militant group to agree to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government describes as a U.S. proposal to extend the ceasefire’s first phase instead of beginning negotiations on the far more difficult second phase. In phase two, Hamas would release the remaining living hostages in return for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire.