Israels Smotrich says not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed on Monday that he will continue the total blockade of aid entering the Gaza Strip.

“Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,” he said, speaking at Israeli outlet Yedioth Ahronoth’s People of Israel Conference.

On 2 March, weeks before breaking the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel shut down all the Palestinian enclave’s border crossings, halting the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid and further exacerbating the territory’s crises.

One of the ceasefire’s main goals was to allow for the return of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Since resuming its full-scale attacks on 18 March, Israel has killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

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Smotrich’s statement comes after Yedioth Ahronoth had reported that Israel was considering the reopening of some aid flow into Gaza.

He insisted on prioritising the complete defeat of Hamas over the release of Israeli captives, who were being gradually freed during the ceasefire.

“It's good that the war has begun, and it's unfortunate that it began this way, but we are changing the reality in the Middle East,” he said.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his troops would escalate their offensive on Gaza in a push to implement US President Donald Trump’s mass expulsion plan for the territory.

Over 50,700 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the war began in October 2023.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war during its attacks on the besieged enclave, with it being one of the main crimes that led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in November.

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