Haifa, Israel — A stabbing in the northern Israeli city of Haifa left one person and the attacker dead, authorities said Monday, in the first such fatal incident since the Gaza ceasefire began in January. The knife attack came just one day after Israel blocked aid to the Gaza Strip amid an impasse with Hamas over how to extend the ceasefire in the decimated Palestinian territory.

The six-week first phase of the truce ended on Saturday. It had enabled the entry of vital food, shelter and medical assistance for the roughly 2 million people living in Gaza and the return of 33 Israeli hostages, both dead and alive. But there was nothing immediately agreed upon to keep the relative peace. 

Negotiations for a second phase of the deal have not started yet as intended, and Israel insisted over the weekend on an intermediary measure it has attributed to the Trump administration, which would significantly change the rough terms of the agreement that were initially discussed.

The Israeli decision to halt the entry of all aid to Gaza drew a call from the United Nations and many Arab nations in the region for an immediate restoration of the truck convoys.

A deadly attack in Haifa

Monday’s attack happened at a bus and train station in Haifa, a large coastal city in northern Israel that is home to a mixed Jewish and Arab population. Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had pronounced dead a man aged about 70 and treated four other wounded people.

Police called it a terrorist attack and said the perpetrator was killed, but there were unconfirmed reports suggesting the man could have been inadvertently hit by a bullet fired by Israeli security forces responding to the knife attack.

After Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ unprecedented terrorist assault, repeated attacks — often involving knives — saw people killed or wounded in Israel. Until Monday, however, the Gaza ceasefire had coincided with a halt to such attacks within Israel, as violence largely subsided in Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Police identified the assailant on Monday as a member of Israel’s Druze Arab minority who had recently returned from another, unspecified country.

Hamas lauded the attack in Haifa, calling it a response to purported Israeli crimes “in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, including killing, destruction and displacement in the northern West Bank, the siege on Gaza, projects to displace Palestinians from the Jordan Valley, and the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The U.S., European Union and Israeli-designated terrorist group called on “our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and inside Israel to escalate the confrontation with the enemy and engage them using all available means.”

Both Israel and Palestinian sources on Sunday reported fresh Israeli military strikes in Gaza, where the health ministry reported at least four people were killed.

Netanyahu pushes new terms with Hamas under apparent U.S. proposal

Mediators Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement along with the U.S., have accused Israel of blatantly violating the ceasefire deal by halting the aid convoys — a move that left trucks loaded with goods lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.

The first six-week phase of the truce also saw the exchange of prisoners and hostages between Israel and Hamas. Of the 251 captives taken during Hamas’ attack, Israel says 59 are still being held in Gaza, of whom at least 35 are dead.

Early on Sunday Israel’s government said it wanted to extend the first phase of the ceasefire until mid-April — a stopgap measure that it said President Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed. Netanyahu said Hamas must accept the new proposal and hand over half of the remaining hostages immediately, before any negotiations begin on a second phase of the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas has repeatedly rejected an extension, instead favoring a transition to the truce deal’s second phase that could bring a permanent end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, as envision in the deal negotiated by the U.S. and its regional partners.

Hamas called Netanyahu’s “decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime and a blatant coup against the (ceasefire) agreement.”

Egypt and Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, denounced Israel’s aid decision.

The European Union condemned what it called Hamas’ refusal to accept the extension of the first phase, and added that Israel’s subsequent aid block “risked humanitarian consequences.”

Brussels called for “a rapid resumption of negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire.”

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, which saw the group kill more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and take 251 others hostage. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has killed more than 48,300 people in the Palestinian enclave, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

The war has also destroyed or damaged most buildings in Gaza, displaced almost the entire population and triggered widespread hunger, according to the U.N.

Netanyahu’s office said Sunday that he had “decided that, from this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will be suspended,” accusing the group of multiple violations of the ceasefire during phase-one, and of controlling the humanitarian aid that had entered the territory thus far and “turning it into a budget for terrorism directed against” Israel.

“In Witkoff’s plan, half of the hostages would be released right away and the remaining half would be released if we reach an agreement on a permanent ceasefire,” Netanyahu said Sunday. “Israel has accepted this plan. I accepted this plan. But so far, Hamas has rejected it.”

His government warned there would be “consequences” for Hamas if it did not accept the temporary truce extension.

Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Gaza militants handed over 25 living hostages and eight bodies in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

In Jerusalem late Sunday, AFP images showed protesters outside Netanyahu’s residence calling on their government to make a deal that would bring home the remaining Israeli hostages.

Netanyahu’s critics in Israel have regularly blamed him for delays throughout the months of truce negotiations.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the far-right faction in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, has threatened to quit if the war is not resumed, a move that would likely precipitate national elections and force Netanyahu to seek a new mandate at a time when the Israeli electorate is deeply divided over his handling of the hostage crisis.

The prime minister is also on trial for corruption charges, which he denies, and on Monday he appeared in court to testify in the case, video images from the court showed.