CAMPAIGNERS slammed Israel today for following through on its threat to cut off the electricity supply to the Palestinians in Gaza.

The move by Israel on Sunday stopped the work of a desalination plant that now leaves around half a million people without access to clean drinking water. 

It comes as Israel sent a team to Qatar to resume talks to extend the fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

The Israelis have said they have reimposed a siege on Gaza and followed it by cutting off electricity to try to force Hamas into accepting an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. 

That phase ended last weekend. But Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Hamas instead wants to follow the agreed process and start negotiations on the ceasefire’s second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. 

Hamas, who are believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others, described Israel’s move as a “starvation policy.”

The British government has warned Israel that failing to restore electricity supply to Gaza may be a breach of international law.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman told reporters today that: “We’re deeply concerned by these reports and urge Israel to lift these restrictions.” 

He added: “We’re clear that a halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, including basic needs such as electricity, risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.”

General Secretary of CND Sophie Bolt said: “Israel is once again inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

“Blocking life-saving aid and now halting critical electricity supplies shows Israel is only interested in continuing its brutal genocide.”

She added: “This is why we must all be out protesting this Saturday in London.”

A spokesperson for the Stop the War Coalition told the Morning Star: “This is yet another Israeli war crime which will deny the people of Gaza not just power but also water and is a clear breach of the ceasefire and a further genocidal act. 

“It’s simply not good enough for the British government to ‘urge’ Netanyahu to restore power while we continue to send arms to Israel.”

Former member of parliament Claudia Webbe said: “This isn’t just occupation, it’s a calculated stranglehold on survival.

“We have a responsibility to rise-up and act.”

Communist Party International Secretary Kevan Nelson said: “This is the latest in a long line of war crimes perpetrated by the Netanyahu regime.

“Those governments, Britain included, that are providing unconditional political and military support to Israel, share responsibility for the inevitable humanitarian catastrophe about to beset the people of Gaza.”

The Palestinian Authority described Israel’s actions as “an escalation in the genocide.” 

In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it “strongly condemns the Israeli Ministry of Energy’s decision to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip, considering it an escalation in the genocide, displacement and humanitarian disaster in Gaza.”

International condemnation included Germany, which has been one of Israel’s chief suppliers of military hardware during its onslaught on the Palestinians.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauert described the cut to electricity as “unacceptable and not compatible with Israel’s obligations under international law.”

Last week, the United Nations human rights office said: “Any denial of the entry of the necessities of life for civilians may amount to collective punishment.”

The International Criminal Court said there was reason to believe Israel had used “starvation as a method of warfare” when it issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year. 

The allegation is central to South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.

Israel has denied the accusations.

But rights group Human Rights Watch said it believed Israel had already intentionally cut off most ways that Palestinians in Gaza could access water.

This included blocking pipelines to Gaza and destroying solar panels used to try to keep some water pumps and desalination and waste management plants running during power outages.

In December HRW reported that Palestinians in many areas of Gaza had access to 0.5 to two gallons of water for drinking and washing per day, per person, far below the 3.3 gallons per person threshold for survival.

Director of the Tricontinental Centre for Social Research, Vijay Prashad, said Israel’s actions were “revenge for the intelligence failure of the Israelis when the Palestinians — with great foresight and courage — decided in the thousands to walk back north to their homes in late January, an act of resistance filmed and circulated, a negation of the genocide.”

US-based journalist, a presenter for Breakthrough News, Eugene Puryear said: “Israel’s steady stream of war crimes is continuing apace. Revealing that no matter what they say about ‘negotiations,’ their true agenda is to do whatever they can to perpetrate the total ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.

“Working side-by-side with the Trump administration which has consistently demonstrated that its preferred outcome is to push Palestinians off their land.”

He added: “Only the resistance of the Palestinian people has prevented their macabre fantasies from becoming the new reality in Gaza.”

Margaret Kimberley, the executive editor of Black Agenda Report, said the lack of enforcement of the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and continued impunity from the US “makes a mockery of any legal actions.”

Meanwhile, talks are continuing to be mediated in Qatar’s capital, Doha.

A senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the group had expressed its longstanding position that it would lay down its arms in return for a “fair and just solution” that includes an independent Palestinian state.

US envoy Adam Boehler, one of the mediators in the talks, told CNN on Sunday: “I think you could see something like a long-term truce, where we forgive prisoners, where Hamas lays down their arms, where they agree they’re not part of the political party going forward. I think that’s a reality. It’s real close.”

He added: “I think something could come together within weeks,” and expressed hope for a deal that would see all hostages released.

On Sunday Hamas didn’t mention any progress in the talks, but repeated its support for a proposal for the establishment of an independent committee of technocrats to run Gaza until Palestinians hold presidential and legislative elections.