Thursday, March 06, 2025
Wednesday, March 05, 2025
Tuesday, March 04, 2025
Member of Elon Musk's DOGE team resigns after racist posts resurface
Member of Elon Musk's DOGE team resigns after racist posts resurface
A staffer connected to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency resigned on Thursday after now-deleted racist social media posts were resurfaced.
The resignation was confirmed by a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Marko Elez, a 25-year-old software engineer, was working inside the Treasury Department to cut costs and root out fraud, as part of Musk's DOGE effort. Elez, who formerly worked at Musk companies X and SpaceX, was one of two temporary appointees at Treasury connected to DOGE who have been granted access to a highly sensitive Treasury system that processes trillions of dollars in payments every year.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a number of 2024 posts from an account connected to Elez on Musk's X platform and noted that White House officials confirmed his resignation after the paper pointed out Elez's activity on the social media site.
"You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity," the account wrote in September. "Normalize Indian hate," a separate post from that month read.
In July of last year, the account posted: "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool."
In other posts, from December, the account pushed for repealing the Civil Rights Act and shared: "I just want a eugenic immigration policy, is that too much to ask."
All of the posts have now been deleted, but NPR has independently confirmed them using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which scrapes and archives vast parts of the open web.
Elez did not return NPR's requests for comment.
Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday said he disagrees with Elez's posts but that "stupid social media activity" should not "ruin a kid's life," he wrote on X. "So I say bring him back," which President Trump said he would support.
Musk replied with: "He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine."
The resignation of Elez comes amid growing questions from lawmakers and former federal government employees about the dozens of staffers Musk has tapped to help him pursue aggressive cost-trimming, and in some cases, attempt to dismantle entire agencies.
As critics highlight legal and ethical issues surrounding DOGE's seemingly unchecked pursuit of government austerity, Democrats in Congress are running into obstacles. A Democratic-led attempt to subpoena Musk about possible conflicts of interest over juggling his DOGE role with the six companies he operates was blocked by Republicans on Wednesday. Democratic Senators are issuing blistering statements, and writing letters to Musk's companies demanding answers, but such moves are unlikely to result in testimony in Washington, as long as Republicans hold a majority in both chambers.
Elez's access to the Treasury payment system had raised alarms over whether sensitive data, including banking information of millions of Americans, is being shared with Musk and his allies.
Two unions representing federal employees and an advocacy group representing retirees sued the Treasury Department, accusing it of violating federal privacy laws.
Elez had recently been appointed a special government employee at the Treasury, the government told the federal judge hearing the case this week. That's a temporary appointment that allows the worker to perform "limited services."
A Justice Department lawyer said that Elez and another special employee at the Treasury connected to DOGE, Tom Krause, had "read-only" access to the payments system and that no data was being shared outside the agency, including with Musk's White House-based DOGE team.
The judge has issued an order temporarily barring the Treasury from giving access to the payment system to anyone outside the department.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the DOGE team on Bloomberg Television on Thursday, saying the unit consists of trained professionals.
"This is not some roving band running around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings," Bessent said.“
US supreme court weakens rules on discharge of raw sewage into water supplies | US supreme court | The Guardian
US supreme court weakens rules on discharge of raw sewage into water supplies
"Ruling by the court, which has a Republican super majority, undermines the 1972 Clean Water Act
The US supreme court has weakened rules on the discharge of raw sewage into water supplies in a 5-4 ruling that undermines the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The CWA is the principle law governing pollution control and water quality of the nation’s waterways.
The Republican super majority court ruled on Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot employ generic, water body-focused pollution discharge limits to Clean Water Act permit holders, and must provide specific limitations to pollution permittees.
The ruling is a win for San Francisco, which challenged nonspecific, or “narrative,” wastewater permits that the EPA issues to protect the quality of surface water sources like rivers and streams relied upon for drinking water.
In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court blocked the EPA from issuing permits that make a permittee responsible for surface water quality, or “end result” permits – a new term coined by the court.
“The agency has adequate tools to obtain needed information from permittees without resorting to end-result requirements,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, along with Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined part of the majority opinion.
The EPA issued San Francisco a permit allowing it to discharge pollutants from its combined sewer system into the Pacific Ocean. The permit’s conditions include prohibitions on discharges that contribute to a violation of applicable water quality standards. The permit included generic prohibitions on the impacts to water quality, as part of the EPA’s efforts to halt San Francisco’s releases of raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean during rainstorms.
San Francisco challenged these conditions, arguing that EPA lacks statutory authority to impose them. The US Court of Appeals for the ninth circuit in July 2023 upheld EPA’s authority to issue generic limits on discharges under the Clean Water Act. San Francisco took the case to the SCJ.
The case drew the attention of powerful business groups including the National Mining Association and US Chamber of Commerce, which wrote amicus briefs in support of San Francisco’s position. It was the first case to grapple with Clean Water Act regulations since the court struck down Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo in June 2024, though it was barely mentioned during oral arguments.
“The city is wrong,” according to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the dissenting opinion, which was joined by the three Democratic justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson. “The relevant provision of the Clean Water Act directs EPA to impose any more stringent limitation that is necessary to meet… or required to implement any applicable water quality standard.”
Monday, March 03, 2025
Sunday, March 02, 2025
‘They worship death’: Trump ‘border czar’ reveals extremist views in interview | US immigration | The Guardian
‘They worship death’: Trump ‘border czar’ reveals extremist views in interview
"The ‘great replacement’ theory, human sacrifice and torture videos: Tom Homan’s talk with Tucker Carlson offered a grab bag of far-right talking points
Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, and far-right media personality Tucker Carlson talked about a bizarre range of extremist and racist conspiracy theories in an interview just weeks before Homan took office and was trusted with implementing a wide-ranging crackdown on migrants.
The conversation included Carlson’s claim that Mexican cartels come “from cultures that have practiced human sacrifice for thousands of years”, connected the racist “great replacement” theory to Biden’s immigration policy, and advocated the arrest of elected US leaders who opposed Donald Trump’s policies on migrants.
On immigration policy, Homan expressed a desire to get the Department of Defense to assist with “intelligence” and “targeting” domestically and took the view that Immigration and Border Enforcement (Ice) should arrest “a mayor or a governor” that “harbored” immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Meanwhile, Homan faces questions over the network of associations he built up in his non-profit work during the interval between his appointment in the first Trump administrationand his new White House role.
While the interview has been fleetingly reported previously, the details of Homan’s conspiracy theory-laden conversation with Carlson have not.
With Trump’s deportation efforts seeing Ice agents attempting to take enforcement actions in schools, colleges and workplaces around the US, Homan’s business dealings and extremist political views have come under scrutiny as the public face of the nationwide crackdown.
UN ‘pulling’ Biden’s ‘strings’
In the podcast interview, recorded for Carlson’s online show and published to X, YouTube and other platforms on 18 December, Homan painted Biden’s border policy as a “great replacement”-style effort to flood the country with potential Democratic voters, and both men characterized the previous administration’s immigration policy as the outcome of a conspiracy involving NGOs, religious charities and the UN.
At one point, Homan accused the Biden administration of having deliberately worked to “unsecure the border”.
Carlson asked: “What do you think the goal was?”
Homan responded: “I think they see a future political benefit. I think they think these people will be future Democratic voters.
“But we don’t even have to get there, Tucker,” added Homan, saying that Biden’s census rules allowed “all these illegal aliens to be counted in sanctuary cities, which is going to result in more seats in the house for the Dems”.
While the idea that an elite was conspiring to orchestrate mass immigration for political gain at the ballot box was mostly confined to the white supremacist racist far right for decades, in recent years “great replacement”-style conspiracy theories such as this have increasingly been voiced by mainstream conservatives and Republicans.
Later in their conversation, Homan and Carlson sought to extend the purported conspiracy theory well beyond the Biden administration. Carlson suggested a wide-ranging plot involving international bodies such as the UN and NGOs and Homan responded by calling for an investigation.
Homan said: “I think under the Trump administration there needs to be an investigation.”
He revealed that “I’ve had numerous conversations with Mark Green, who is the head of homeland oversight.” Green is a Tennessee Republican who chairs the House’s homeland security committee and is an ex-officio member of the oversight, investigations and accountability committee, which has oversight over the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.
Homan said Green “plans on having some oversight hearings on this when it comes to the NGOs. I think they were complicit.”
He then asserted without evidence that “certainly the United Nations were south of our border, working on this global illegal immigration to the United States”.
Homan rounded out the conspiracy theory, saying: “This was by design. Do I think Joe Biden had the expertise to do it? No, I think someone’s pulling his strings.
“This is something that needs to be investigated, people need to be held accountable,” he added.
Cartels ‘have operational control of the south-west border’
The two returned obsessively throughout their conversation to the issue of drug cartels, which they claimed had deprived the US of sovereignty over parts of perhaps five US states and the entire south-west border.
Early in the conversation, Homan stated his basic position on the cartels: they should be “designated terrorist organizations and wiped off the face of the earth”.
Later, Carlson asked Homan about what he said “informed people” had told him: “In parts of New Mexico, Arizona, California, even Florida, Texas, there is real control, in the way they control Mexico.”
In those locations, purportedly, “they’re basically a state within a state, they have their own armored personnel carriers, tanks, you know”. He then asked Homan: “Do you think that’s real, do you think they have that kind of beachhead here?”
“Absolutely,” Homan answered, continuing that “I’ve seen the intelligence reports, they have military-grade weapons. It’s not just my opinion, they have control, operational control of the south-west border.”
‘They worship death’
Later in the conversation, Homan and Carlson attributed the cartels’ motivations in part to their worship of “satanic” ideas or “death”, seeking to tie that to their “cultures” which “practice human sacrifice”.
Carlson began by claiming to “know that in El Salvador when MS-13 ran the country, before Bukele, there was a religious component of voodoo witchcraft to MS-13 where they were worshipping the devil openly.”
Nayib Bukele is the authoritarian, populist president of El Salvador, whose promotion of cryptocurrency and brutal crackdown on gangs in the country have won him fans on the “new right” in the US and beyond.
Earlier this month, Marco Rubio met with Bukele in El Salvador, and the latter offered to hold deportees and US citizens alike in its vast network of prisons. That network includes the largest prison in the Americas, built to accommodate 40,000 people, which is around half the number Bukele has locked up since his war on the gangs commenced.
Later in the podcast conversation, Carlson claimed that devil worship was a “component of the cartels, you see it in Mexico as well”, and asked Homan: “Have you come across that?”
“Yeah,” Homan answered. “They worship death.”
“Formally worship it?” Carlson shot back.
“Yeah,” Homan answered. “I won’t call it religious, but even Texas [department of public safety] have found some of these places where the cartels are operating, they got statues there and memorabilia worshipping death as a consequence of not letting them do their business.”
Homan may have been referring to Santa Muerte, a Mexican “folk saint” whose currency among cartel members has been an intermittent focus of US conservative media coverage of crime at the border, and enforcement actions in Mexico, where “the Mexican army, under orders from the Mexican state, has obliterated thousands of shrines dedicated to the folk saint across the country”.
Researchers have found, however, that Santa Muerte devotion is not confined to criminals, and is also found “increasingly [among] police and others involved in law enforcement”.
Carlson appeared to assert that there was a connection between cartels and the historical practice of human sacrifice in some pre-colonial Meso-American cultures, saying: “And these are from cultures that have practiced human sacrifice for thousands of years.”
Homan answered: “I got a video on my phone showing a member of the cartel skinning a man alive.”
He added: “Skinning him alive on video to send a message that if you snitch on the cartels they’re not gonna just kill you, they’re gonna make you suffer immensely.”
‘Why can’t I arrest a mayor or a governor?’
Homan also asserted Ice’s right to arrest elected officials responsible for so-called “sanctuary cities”, which do not cooperate with Ice operations within their boundaries.
He said: “I as an agent … have arrested United States citizens for knowingly harboring an illegal alien in their home.”
He continued: “If I can arrest a US citizen for violating those crimes, why can’t I arrest a mayor or a governor who has given their staff explicit instructions to impede us and to hide from us?”
Homan added: “We need to prosecute these people and send a message that this is unacceptable.”
That is a message Homan has continued to assert since taking office. Last week, Homan warned that the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may “be in trouble” over a webinar about Ice that was hosted by her office.
The congresswoman on Wednesday aired a “Know Your Rights With ICE” webinar on her Facebook page which advised attendees of “trends” of arrests by Ice in New York and explained what rights they have. Ocasio-Cortez did not attend it.
But Homan told Fox News: “So maybe AOC’s gonna be in trouble now, but I need the [office of the attorney general] to opine on that … Impediment is impediment, in my opinion.”
On Friday, Homan and the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, appeared in a joint interview on Fox News, where Adams endorsed a Trump executive order which would allow Ice agents to operate at the city’s Rikers Island jail.
In the Fox and Friends studio, Homan said of Adams and his promises of cooperation: “If he doesn’t come through … I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, Where the hell is the agreement we came to?”
Adams is at the center of a political firestorm after top justice department attorneys in New York and Washington DC resigned in the face of orders to drop their prosecution of the New York mayor over corruption allegations.
Financial entanglements
Like every senior administration appointee to date, Homan is an unstinting supporter of Trump, and a full-throated 2020 election denialist. This, and his espousal of anti-immigrant rhetoric, have led to controversy but also to associations with far-right extremists, and sprawling business relationships that some say present conflicts of interest.
Between his departure from the first Trump administration and his appointment as border czar, a White House role, Homan had stints as a Fox News contributor, was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and was credited as a contributor in “Mandate for Leadership”, the central document of Project 2025, the rightwing blueprint for the second Trump administration.
Apart from these blue ribbon conservative appointments, Homan has involved himself in several interrelated non-profit organizations.
The Border911 Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, was founded in 2023 in Virginia, Homan’s state of residence. At the same time, he also founded Border911 Inc, a 501(c)(4) organization. (501(c)(4)s differ from 501(c)(3)s in that donations to them are not tax-deductible, but they are permitted to engage in electoral advocacy.)
Both the Border911 Foundation and Border911 Inc were spin-offs from the America Project (TAP), a Michael Flynn-founded election-denial non-profit that was reportedly funded to the tune of $27m by rightwing overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
Homan was reportedly TAP CEO for part of 2023. His appointment to that role occasioned a fundraising gala at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort that year.
From early 2024, Homan was out at TAP and focused on the Border911 Foundation and Border Inc, as well as a Trump-endorsed for-profit consultancy Homeland Strategic Consulting LLC, which, Homan boasted, secured “tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts” for his clients.
Throughout the campaign season, the Border911 Foundation was a virtual speaker’s agency for a stable of rightwing anti-immigration activists, many of them former law enforcement officials who appeared at rallies organized by the non-profit or by political candidates, such as Arizona’s Kari Lake, throughout south-western border states.
Previous reporting has highlighted seeming irregularities in tax filings by the non-profits. Coda reported that in 2023, “both of Homan’s Border911 organizations reported almost the same expenses – about $87,000 – but the 501(c)(4) claimed zero revenue”. Non-profit compliance experts expressed concerns to the outlet that “the tax-exempt charity money may have been passed through” the 501(c)(4).
Steve Lentz, an attorney acting as a spokesperson for both Border911 organizations, told Coda that this was due to errors in the filings, “There was an entry in the [501](c)(4) [filing] that shouldn’t have been there,” he said, and said it would be amended.
The Guardian’s review of the filings indicates that amendments were subsequently made.
The Transparency non-profit Accountable.US, however, has raised concerns about what it says is a potential for conflicts of interest arising from the 501(c)(3) non-profit and its board in newly published research.
Partly the worries arise from ambiguities in Homan’s public statements about his relationship with the foundation while he is in office.
Accountable.US says that while Homan has said that he will take a “leave of absence” from Border911, he has also appeared to claim that the non-profit will continue to act as “data-mining site” that will provide “real up-to-date data on anything related to the border”, including “apprehensions”, “ICE arrests” and other information.
And some of the foundation’s board members work for federal government contractors.
Charles Sowell is chair of the Border911 Foundation’s board. He is also the founder and CEO of SE&M Solutions, a security and IT consulting firm that touts its “access to senior leaders in government” and “hopes to secure local and federal contracts using the best experts in the government consulting industry”.
The Border911 Foundation’s director, Mark Hall, meanwhile, is currently the US security lead and chief security officer for Dragados USA, a construction contracting firm, where he claims to lead security for “a $6bn international border crossing construction project” whose cost indicates that it is likely the Gordie Howe international bridge between the US and Canada, which is budgeted for that figure.
While there is no evidence of wrongdoing from these board members, a mass deportation effort on the scale promised by Trump, Homan and other administration immigration hawks such as Stephen Miller could be a bonanza for US government contractors.
Accountable.US fears the worst. Its executive director, Tony Clark, said in a statement: “Homan appears to be using division, fear and chaos in a way to pad his friends’ pockets. Why should anyone believe Homan won’t steer lucrative government contracts to members of his ‘non-profit’ board?”
Judge Rules Trump Can’t Fire Head of Federal Watchdog Agency Without Cause - The New York Times
Judge Rules Trump Can’t Fire Head of Federal Watchdog Agency Without Cause
"A federal judge said that the president’s efforts to remove Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, were unlawful. The agency protects whistle-blowers.
A federal judge in Washington on Saturday blocked President Trump from ousting the leader of a federal watchdog agency, saying that the effort to remove the official without due cause had violated the law.
In an order on Saturday evening, Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a permanent injunction against the government, allowing Hampton Dellinger to remain the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistle-blowers.
The order required the Trump administration to recognize Mr. Dellinger’s authority in that position, barring it from taking any action to “treat him in any way as if he has been removed” or otherwise interfere with his work.
The administration immediately moved to challenge the ruling, starting an appeals process that appeared likely to end at the Supreme Court.
In a 67-page opinion explaining the order, Judge Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stressed the unique responsibilities Congress gave the office when it was created under a 1978 law. She noted its central role in protecting whistle-blowers in the federal government, a role that she said would be compromised if Mr. Dellinger were allowed to be removed without a cause stipulated under the law.
“It is his independence that qualifies him to watch over the time-tested structure that is supposed to bar executive officials from taking federal jobs from qualified individuals and handing them out to political allies — a system that Congress found intolerable over a century ago,” she wrote. “The position would be entirely ineffective if the special counsel were to be compelled to operate with the sword of at-will removal hanging over his head.”
Mr. Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate for the role in 2024 for a five-year term.
But on Feb. 7, he received a memo from the White House notifying him that he was fired, without any explanation. Several days later, Judge Jackson issued a temporary orderallowing Mr. Dellinger to stay in place while litigation continued.
During a hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing the government argued that Mr. Dellinger’s role was comparable to that of other heads of federal agencies who are appointed by the president. They said that the office Mr. Dellinger runs has significant investigatory powers, arguing that as president, Mr. Trump should be able to ensure the office is run by a person sharing his agenda.
Mr. Dellinger’s lawyers described the job as limited in scope, with only the authority to start inquiries and no power to enforce subpoenas. But they insisted that the role, as envisioned by Congress, should come with independence and some legal protections.
Earlier this week, Mr. Dellinger said the Office of Special Counsel was investigating the president’s move to fire thousands of probationary workers. The federal Merit Systems Protection Board said that it would reinstate six workers while the watchdog agency continued to investigate.
Judge Jackson’s ruling shielding Mr. Dellinger came a week after the Supreme Court declined to lift the temporary block on his removal. Lawyers for the government argued to the court that Mr. Trump had expansive executive authority to place his preferred pick in charge of the office.
While the justices’ order declining to intervene was unsigned, some on the court suggested that they might return to the matter.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said that they would have rejected the Trump administration’s request for Supreme Court intervention outright. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., filed a dissent, noting that it “may not yet have ripened into an appealable order” in the eyes of the majority but that the case could soon make its way back up to the court.
A future challenge before the court could provide an early test of the justices’ appetite to restrain Mr. Trump’s executive power, but Judge Jackson’s order made clear her belief that the Office of Special Counsel should be insulated from politics.
She said that without a more substantive reason related to his performance, Mr. Dellinger could not be fired “on a whim or out of personal animus.”
“The Special Counsel’s job is to look into and expose unethical or unlawful practices directed at federal civil servants,” she wrote, “and to help ensure that whistle-blowers who disclose fraud, waste, and abuse on the part of government agencies can do so without suffering reprisals.”
“It would be ironic, to say the least,” she added, if the “special counsel himself could be chilled in his work by fear of arbitrary or partisan removal.”
Adam Liptak contributed reporting.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the U.S. Department of Education, the White House and federal courts. More about Zach Montague"
DOGE Claims Credit for Killing Contracts That Were Already Dead - The New York Times
Israel Halts Aid to Gaza and Proposes New Framework for an End to the War
"Israel has called for Hamas to accept a temporary extension of the existing cease-fire deal, and to release more hostages.
Israel announced on Sunday that it was immediately halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza, trying to force Hamas into accepting a temporary extension of the cease-fire in the war.
The move disrupts the existing, agreed-upon framework for negotiating a permanent end to the war and puts the fate of the hostages into uncharted territory. The draconian halt on goods and aid, including fuel, is also likely to worsen conditions for the roughly two million inhabitants of Gaza, after the 15-month war left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.
The initial, six-week phase of the original deal between Israel and Hamas expired on Saturday. Though it was punctured by setbacks and mutual accusations of violations, it ultimately saw at least a temporary cessation in the fighting and the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight dead ones for about 1,500 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. That deal also allowed for a significant increase of aid into Gaza.
The next phase of the agreement called for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a commitment to a permanent cease-fire in return for the release of all the remaining living hostages in Gaza, who are being held in inhumane conditions, according to reports from hostages who have been freed.
Instead, hours before its announcement about the halt of aid, Israel proposed a seven-week extension of the temporary cease-fire, during which Hamas must release half the remaining living hostages as well as the remains of half the deceased ones. Upon conclusion of that extension, if agreement were reached on a permanent cease-fire, then all the remaining hostages would have to be released, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“Israel will not allow a cease-fire without the release of our hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Sunday.
“If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences,” it added.
Hamas immediately rejected the Israeli gambit, issuing a statement on Sunday describing the halt in aid as “cheap blackmail” and “a blatant upending of the agreement.”
Israel attributed the new proposal to the work of the U.S. envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff. The existing deal was negotiated between Israel and Hamas through third-country mediators including the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Last year, the United Nations and aid organizations repeatedly warned about a looming famine in Gaza amid widespread hunger during the war, which was sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. While goods are more available now, many Gazans say they cannot afford to buy them, and many depend on humanitarian assistance.
Palestinians in Gaza were already struggling to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan, which began this weekend, and is normally a joyous time in the Muslim calendar.
Abdulrahman Mohammed, 35, a father of four from Gaza City, said the halting of aid was already affecting the availability of essential goods like milk, fruit and vegetables. Prices had skyrocketed, he said, adding that some traders were hoarding supplies to sell them later at even more inflated prices.
Two Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the government believed that with the aid and goods that entered the enclave in recent months and during the temporary cease-fire, there were enough supplies in Gaza to suffice for several more months. They did not offer further details.
The officials added that the new restrictions would not apply to the entry of water.
Under the existing cease-fire deal, Israel was by now supposed to have begun removing its troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strategic strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt. By Sunday, there had been no such movement.
Mr. Netanyahu said the proposed temporary cease-fire should extend over the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and through the Jewish holiday of Passover, which ends on April 20.
In broadcast remarks at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Steve Witkoff proposed the framework for extending the cease-fire after gaining the impression that there is no possibility, at present, of bridging between the two positions, Israel’s and Hamas’s, regarding the second stage” of the existing deal.
Mr. Netanyahu added that according to Mr. Witkoff, additional time for talks was needed to achieve a possible agreement. “He even defined his proposal as a corridor for negotiations on the second stage,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “Israel is ready for this.”
But the Israeli government has been categorical that the war in Gaza cannot end unless Hamas is disarmed and removed from power there, terms that Hamas has largely rejected.
Israelis have been shocked by the testimonies of recently released hostages who said they were kept for months in dark tunnels, in constant fear for their lives, with very little food and, in some cases, in shackles. The families of hostages remaining in Gaza have been pleading for the government to end the war and bring them home all at once.
In all, up to 24 hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday. Hamas also holds the remains of at least 35 who are believed to be dead, he added in recorded remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “We are not giving up on anyone,” he said.
“There will be no free lunches,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “If Hamas thinks that it will be possible to continue the cease-fire or benefit from the terms of the first stage, without us receiving hostages, it is sorely mistaken.”
On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its willingness to begin negotiations for the second stage of the deal and accused Israel of “a blatant attempt to renege on the agreement.”
Hamas is unlikely to accept Israel’s new offer without further negotiations, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The proposal, he said, “allows Israelis to get hostages back without making reciprocal commitments.”
On Sunday, Israel also raised the specter of resuming fighting in Gaza, noting in the statement that according to the original agreement, Israel could return to fighting at this point “if it gains the impression that the negotiations have been ineffective.”
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Saturday that he had signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.
Eve Sampson contributed reporting from New York, Ameera Harouda from Doha, Qatar, and Myra Noveck from Jerusalem.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990. More about Isabel Kershner"