Middle East latest: Arab countries are working on a postwar plan for Gaza

Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo on Monday for talks focusing on Egypt's plan to rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, hoping to counter President Donald Trump’s proposal to expel Palestinians from the coastal enclave and take it over.

In Israel, an attacker fatally stabbed a man in his 60s and wounded four others in the northern city of Haifa, police said. Israeli authorities said the assailant was a Palestinian citizen of Israel and that bystanders killed him. The militant group Hamas praised the attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility for it.

The attack took place as regional tensions are high surrounding the fate of the ceasefire in Gaza. Israel has stopped the entry of all food and other supplies into Gaza and warned of “additional consequences” for Hamas if the ceasefire's first phase isn’t extended. Hamas accused Israel of trying to derail the second phase. Mediators Egypt and Qatar accused Israel of violating humanitarian law by using starvation as a weapon against the Palestinians in Gaza.

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Here's the latest:

Palestinians say Israel blocking aid is a death sentence for Gaza

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are deeply concerned that their already dire situation will get much worse now that Israel has cut off all food and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

“This is a decision of genocide … Our children are being starved,” said Mohammed Abu Shalhoub, a displaced man from Rafah, who was waiting alongside dozens of people to receive a hot meal from a charity in the Muwasi area, west of the city of Khan Younis.

He urged other countries to pressure Israel to give Palestinians their most basic rights: "food, clothing, and drink — nothing more.”

A displaced woman, Umm Akram Shalhoub, said Israel's decision to cut off aid was “an execution.”

The war has displaced at least 90% of Gaza's population of over 2 million and left them dependent on international aid.

Price of food skyrockets after Israel closes Gaza's borders, UN says

Foods like flour and vegetables are 100 times more expensive in Gaza than before Israel halted all food from entering a day earlier, the United Nations says.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the price increases were reported by the U.N.’s humanitarian partners on the ground Monday who are currently assessing stocks that are still available in the Gaza Strip.

Dujarric said the United Nations has not received reports that militants or other groups were diverting aid meant for civilians. “What we have seen since the ceasefire is a much freer and more direct flow of aid, and we have not seen any of the looting that we had seen prior to the ceasefire,” he told reporters.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of selling aid and preventing Palestinians from getting it.

Fight breaks out in the Israeli parliament between hostages' families and security guards

Chaos erupted in the Israeli parliament on Monday when security guards scuffled with relatives of people killed or taken hostage in the Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza.

Relatives of people killed tried to enter the parliament hall as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared for a debate about a governmental inquiry into the events of October 2023. Security guards blocked them from entering the observation area. Some family members wailed in frustration and grief before the two sides began pushing and hitting one another outside the hall, including on a crowded stairwell.

“You are hitting bereaved parents!” one person screamed in footage of the episode released by the October Council, a group representing the families. “Our children were killed and murdered!” One family member fainted, according to Israeli media.

A spokesperson for Israel's parliament said too many people had attempted to enter the hall and they would examine the episode. The families were eventually allowed in.

The heated scene reflects the heightened emotions in Israel as Netanyahu’s government debates whether to resume the war against Hamas after a six-week ceasefire. It also came a day before a group of newly freed Israeli hostages are expected to press President Donald Trump at a White House meeting to continue the ceasefire and bring home all remaining hostages from Hamas captivity.

Israel strikes a military post in Syria

There was no immediate word on casualties. Israel has carried hundreds of airstrikes in different parts of the country since President Bashar Assad was overthrown by Islamist rebels in December, destroying much of the Syrian army’s assets.

The Israeli military said Thursday it struck a military site where weapons belonging to the previous government were stored in the area of Qardaha.

Al-Watan newspaper said an apparent Israeli airstrike struck a post near the highway linking Tartus with the coastal town of Baniyas.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said residents in the area received messages on the cellular telephones asking them to stay away from military posts. It added that shortly afterward an explosion was heard and smoke billowed from the area.

Stabbing attack in Israel kills 1

A man in his 60s was killed and four other people were wounded in a stabbing attack Monday in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, police said. Israeli authorities said the assailant was killed.

Police said they were treating the stabbing, which took place in a central transit hub, as a militant attack. A security guard and a civilian killed the attacker, who police said was an Arab citizen of Israel who had recently returned to Israel after some time abroad.

The attack took place as regional tensions are high surrounding the fate of the ceasefire in Gaza. The militant group Hamas praised the attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility for it.

3-phase ceasefire is the only way of getting hostages back, Hamas warns Israel

A senior Hamas official said Monday the three-phase ceasefire deal is Israel’s sole way to get its hostages back from the militant group in Gaza.

Ossama Hamdan said that Israel “is pushing to return things to square one and overturn the agreement through the alternatives it is proposing.”

He said that implementation of the deal, including by engaging immediately in the second phase, is the sole way to return the hostages.

The first phase expired over the weekend. Israel said that a new U.S. proposal calls for extending the ceasefire through Ramadan — the Muslim holy month that began over the weekend — and the Jewish Passover holiday, which ends April 20.

Hamas accused Israel of trying to derail the second phase during which Hamas is set to release living hostages, while Israel ends the war and withdraws its forces from Gaza.

Israel holds one of the last funerals for 8 hostages killed in Gaza

Mourners in Israel attended one of the last funerals for eight hostages whose bodies were returned from Gaza during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Crowds lined the long route of the funeral procession for Itzhak Elgarat, who was 68 when he was abducted by Hamas militants from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Israel has said that Elgarat was killed in captivity but the circumstances surrounding his death are not known. His brother, Danny Elgarat, told mourners at the funeral that in their last phone conversation, on Oct. 7, 2023, his brother had said to him, “Danny, this is the end.”

“Unfortunately you were right,” Danny Elgarat said in the eulogy for his brother. “We fought with all our might to prove you wrong. We failed. We didn’t do enough.”

A prominent and outspoken figure in the public struggle for the release of the hostages, Danny Elgarat also railed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to bring back his brother alive.

“The enemy who caused your death was not the one who abducted you but the one who abandoned you,” he said. “You managed to survive the kidnapping, the kidnappers, and the injury for many months, and in the end, did not survive your own prime minister’s torpedoing (of the hostage deal) and abandonment.”