Haifa (Israel) (AFP) - A stabbing in Israel’s coastal city of Haifa killed one person on Monday and ended with the Israeli Arab assailant dead, in the country’s first fatal attack since the Gaza ceasefire began in late January.

The stabbing came one day after Israel blocked aid to the Gaza Strip during an impasse over extending the truce in the Palestinian territory.

The six-week first phase of the ceasefire ended over the weekend, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began.

The ceasefire deal had enabled the entry of vital food, shelter and medical supplies into Gaza. Israel’s decision prompted the United Nations to call for an immediate restoration of the aid.

Monday’s attack happened at a bus and train station in Haifa, a coastal city in northern Israel home to a mixed Jewish and Arab population.

“A terrorist exited a bus, stabbed multiple civilians, and was subsequently neutralised by a security guard and a civilian at the scene,” police said.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said they pronounced dead a man aged around 70, and treated four other wounded people.

Police identified the assailant as a member of Israel’s Druze Arab minority, but did not specify a motive for the attack.

After the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, repeated attacks – often involving knives – have killed or wounded people in Israel. Authorities often blame “terrorists”, a term they use for incidents linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Attacks by members of the Arabic-speaking Druze community are rare, however.

- Violence largely subsided -

Until Monday, the Gaza truce had coincided with a halt to attacks within Israel, as violence largely subsided in Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.

The Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, while Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed nearly 48,400 people, also mostly civilians, data from both sides show.

Of the 251 captives taken during Hamas’s attack, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.

Truce mediators Egypt and Qatar accused Israel of blatantly violating the ceasefire deal by halting aid, a move that left trucks loaded with goods lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to Gaza, according to AFP images.

Early on Sunday Israel had announced a truce extension until mid-April that it said US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed.

But Hamas has repeatedly rejected an extension, instead favouring a transition to the truce deal’s second phase, which could bring a permanent end to the war.

On Monday, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said “violations” during the first phase proved Israel’s government “was interested in the collapse of the agreement and worked hard to achieve that”.

Israel’s push for an extension was an attempt to “evade entering into negotiations for the second phase”, Hamdan added.

Israel has also accused Hamas of violations during the ceasefire.

- ‘Consequences’ -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Sunday that “all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will be suspended”, and that Hamas would face “consequences” if it did not accept the temporary truce extension.

On Monday, Germany’s foreign ministry said: “Granting or denial of humanitarian access is not a legitimate means of pressure in negotiations.”

Echoing Berlin’s position, the British government also said the aid “must not be blocked”.

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

Arab foreign ministers gathered in Cairo on Monday, a day before a leaders’ summit that is expected to discuss a Gaza reconstruction plan.

Under the first phase of the truce, Gaza militants handed over 25 living hostages and eight bodies in exchange for the release of 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, leader of the far-right faction in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, has threatened to quit if the war is not resumed.

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

On Sunday Israel’s military said it had conducted an air strike targeting suspects in northern Gaza, as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported at least four people killed and six wounded in Israeli attacks.

The military on Monday said it had struck a “suspicious motorised vessel” off the coast of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, and in a separate incident, opened fire on two suspects who it said had approached troops and posed a threat.