In the desolate ruins of the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, Umm Muhammad’s daughter Hala assembles scraps of wood and chunks of foam to build a fire.

Proper housing and basic infrastructure are nowhere to be found. Their family of 11 is living in a tent alongside heaps of concrete and mangled steel that now lie where their home once stood.

What they do have: flour, water and oil, which means Umm Muhammad can bake bread for her family.

But for how long?

“The food aid is what’s keeping us alive,” Umm Muhammad said. “We eat and drink for the whole month from aid. Without that, it will be very difficult… aid makes us live.”

That lifeline for Umm Muhammad and hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians is now under existential threat as Israel lays siege to Gaza once again.

The Israeli government announced Sunday that it was shutting down the supply of food and other humanitarian aid into Gaza in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages and impose new conditions on the extension of the ceasefire, a day after the conclusion of the first phase of the deal.

“As of this morning, the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza will be prevented,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday, accusing Hamas of controlling “all of the supplies of goods that are being sent to the Gaza Strip” and “turning the humanitarian aid into a budget for terrorism directed against us.”

Hamas rejected those claims as “baseless lies.” Multiple humanitarian aid groups operating inside Gaza have said they distribute the aid they receive directly to those in need.

The United Nations and other aid groups accuse Israel of violating international law by blocking the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and say Israel is once again using starvation as a weapon of war, a charge Israel has denied. These same organizations have accused Israel of restricting or creating hurdles to the entry of aid throughout the war.

Twenty-five thousand trucks carrying food, hygiene supplies, tents and other necessities entered Gaza during the first six weeks of the ceasefire, stemming massive food insecurity and somewhat alleviating dire humanitarian conditions that had gripped Gaza.

Amid the rubble, families celebrating Ramadan have been able to put food on the table for the break-fast meal of Iftar. Markets had recently begun to come back to life. And regular aid distribution provided a thin safety net.

Israel’s decision to block aid into Gaza is already reverberating throughout the strip.

Food prices are already sharply rising in Gaza’s markets. And aid organizations are scrambling to ration minimal stockpiles of aid.

The World Food Programme said that bakeries and soup kitchens in Gaza could be forced to shut down in less than two weeks if more aid does not reach the strip.

Israel has threatened to take additional steps if Hamas does not agree to its demands, including cutting off electricity and water supplies to Gaza.

US-based group Human Rights Watch warned Thursday that Israel’s blockade would shut down most of the Palestinian territory’s water infrastructure within a week by starving it of fuel.

The specter of a return to war also now looms large, especially after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to give Israel the weapons it needs “to finish the job” in Gaza unless Hamas immediately releases all of the remaining hostages held there.

But for some in Gaza, Israel’s decision to block food aid into Gaza already amounts to a return to war.

“They are fighting us through our food,” Abu Muhammad said, standing atop a pile of rubble in Jabalya. “Netanyahu is now publicly saying ‘I will close the crossings and starve you.’ No one is standing against him.”

“Who is standing with us?” he asks. “We only have God – God is with us.”

“There are more than 190 countries in the world,” the Chinese diplomat said during a news conference in Beijing.

“Should everyone stress ‘my country first’ and obsess over a position of strength, the law of the jungle would reign again, smaller and weaker countries would bear the brunt first, and international norms and order would take a body blow,” he added.

Wang, China’s most seasoned diplomat and a trusted hand for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, made the remarks while hosting his 11th such news briefing on the sidelines of the yearly “two sessions” gathering of China’s rubber stamp legislature and its top political advisory body.

The highly choregraphed event is typically a chance for Beijing to broadcast its views on pressing global issues. But this year’s gathering, which comes as Beijing is wading into a new trade war with Washington and Trump upends US foreign policy, gave Wang a well-timed platform to present China as a reliable leader and stable partner.

When asked about Trump’s decision to double additional tariffs on Chinese imports to the US earlier this week, Wang struck a defiant tone: “No country should fantasize that it can suppress China on the one hand and develop good relations with China on the other.”

“This ‘two-faced’ approach is not only not conducive to the stability of bilateral relations, but also unable to establish mutual trust,” he added.

“A big country should honor its international obligations and fulfill its due responsibilities. It should not put selfish interests before principles, still less should it wield the power to bully the weak,” Wang said, adding that China “resolutely opposes power politics and hegemony.”

Since taking office in January, Trump has upended the US role on the global stage: pulling back from international pacts and bodies, cancelling much of America’s vast foreign aid and threatening to take control of other countries’ sovereign territory. His administration has also thrown into question longstanding alliances, alienating Europe as it pivots to Russia — and earlier this week suspending American military aid to Ukraine.

Frequent criticisms of China’s aggression in South China Sea and its intimidation of the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan notwithstanding, Chinese diplomats have used the American president’s shakeup to inject more oomph into efforts to showcase their country — and not America — as being on the right side of history.

Global conflicts

Few global issues have lent themselves as neatly to that rhetoric than the war in Ukraine.

Washington’s pivot toward Moscow has not only shocked European allies but left open an opportunity for Beijing to push back against longstanding criticism of its close ties with Moscow, which have only expanded since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to media Wednesday on the margins of a meeting of China’s advisory body the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Lu Shaye, China’s special envoy for the European Affairs, called on countries to “first criticize the US” and not China for Russia ties.

“Is it still necessary to question whether China is favoring Russia? If they still have doubts about this, they should first criticize the US. The US is not just leaning (towards Russia) — it’s supporting it,” said Lu, a former ambassador to France who’s known for his brash style.

“European friends should reflect on how the Trump administration’s policies contrast with those of the Chinese government,” he said, adding that with its “mutually beneficial” approach to foreign policy, China’s “circle of friends will only grow.”

The Chinese foreign minister also addressed the war in Ukraine and Russia-China relations during his roughly 90-minute press conference.

He hailed Moscow-Beijing ties as a “constant push in a turbulent world” at a time when Trump officials have suggested they hope to drive a wedge between the two close partners.

When asked how Beijing could factor into efforts toward peace in Ukraine, which so far have appeared to be largely driven by Washington and Moscow and bypassing Europe and Ukraine, Wang reiterated China’s claim that it holds an “objective and impartial” stance on the conflict and said it “welcomes and supports all efforts for peace.”

But he also used his answer to promote a shared view between Moscow and Beijing — who have long been united in their opposition to NATO, which they have falsely blamed for sparking Russia’s invasion. `

“All parties should learn something from the crisis,” Wang said, adding in a veiled reference to the US and its Europe alliance system: “No country should build its security on the insecurity of another.”

He also indirectly criticized Washington’s approach to the conflict in Gaza, when asked about Trump’s controversial proposal last month for the US to take ownership of the war-torn enclave and redevelop it into a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”

“If the major country truly cares about the people in Gaza, it should promote comprehensive and lasting ceasefire, ramp up humanitarian assistance, observe the principle of Palestinians governing Palestine and contribute to the reconstruction,” he said.

It’s a sign of these extraordinary times that even the Kremlin’s old propagandists are scrambling to change their tune.

Across state-controlled Russian media, disparaging references to “the collective West” and “Anglo-Saxons” – thinly-veiled diplomatic code for US-led states – have been quietly dropped. Instead, it’s just what the Kremlin calls “the old world” of Europe, without its US partner, being singled out for criticism.

On his top-rated news show, Dmitry Kisylov, a prominent state mouthpiece who once boasted how Russia could reduce the United States to a smouldering pile of radioactive ash, is now talking about a “great troika,” dominating the globe: China, Russia and the US.

“Now the European war party wants to further escalate the Ukrainian conflict,” Kisylov tells his millions of Russian viewers.

But “if we simplify it, everything now is decided by the great troika – Russia, China and US – that will form the new structure of the world. The European Union as a single political force no longer exists,” he adds.

It is a bleak vision already being played out on the battlefields of Ukraine, where the Trump-administration, determined to end the bloodshed, is piling pressure on an embattled Kyiv.

To the alarm of the Western allies, US President Donald Trump has made breathtaking concessions to the Kremlin, most recently suspending US military aid to Ukraine – to the glee of the Kremlin. Trump has also rejected the idea of future NATO membership for the country, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022, and have US security guarantees.

By unilaterally starting negotiations with Russia over the heads of Ukraine and Europe, Trump has begun a controversial process of bringing Moscow in from the diplomatic cold, sowing disunity among Washington’s traditional allies. Both are longtime Kremlin objectives.

Trump’s public humiliation of Ukrainian President Zelensky during a recent visit to the White House underlined for many Russians just how seismic the US shift has been.

At times, Kremlin-controlled media struggled to reconcile the shocking events.

“On the one hand, Trump speaks about peace, and politicians close to him say they’re interested in Ukraine’s success,” observed Igor Naymushin, a reporter for Russian state media.

“But on the other, from Washington it looks like he’s giving Russia all the cards and tools to successfully continue the special military operation and directly achieve success on the battlefield,” Naymushin added, using a common euphemism in Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

In Russia, the heavily-controlled media reflects the mood of the Kremlin, as do the words of Russian officials now driving home US-European divisions while flip-flopping on Washington’s historical record.

“I do not want to be anti-European,” claimed Sergey Lavrov, the veteran Russian foreign minister. “However…. all the tragedies of the world originated in Europe or happened thanks to European policy. Colonization, wars, crusaders, the Crimean War, Napoleon, World War One, Adolf Hitler. If we look at history in retrospect, the Americans did not play any instigating or even inflammatory role,” he insisted in an interview posted on the official foreign ministry website.

Beyond the flattery, however, it’s hard to see what the US has extracted from Russia in return for Washington’s geopolitical about-face.

Privately, one Russian official told me the US-Russian economic cooperation deals being discussed behind closed doors may have appealed. Such deals are Putin’s “Kryptonite” for a transactional Trump, as one Russian commentator put it.

“Trump is like Superman, and our President (Putin) has found his weakness,” said Nikita Danyuk, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation to Russian state media outlet Channel 1.

“As soon as Trump hears ‘rare earth metals’, it doesn’t matter if those metals are there or not. He forgets about anything and is ready to accept any terms. It’s truly a grandmasters game by our President,” Danyuk said.

Other pro-Kremlin figures, like Olga Skabaeva, a state TV presenter, highlight the free hand the Trump administration appears to have granted Moscow.

After a senior Ukrainian official, Andrey Yermak, posted a social media calling for Russia to “stop its daily shelling of Ukraine, and immediately, if it really wants to end the war,” Skabaeva responded: “This morning Yermak woke up and thought he was Trump…”

“But he forgot that Trump does not set any conditions for Russia and Putin. Only for Zelensky and Ukraine.”

Little wonder the Kremlin’s propagandists have been falling over themselves to praise the United States.

They have changed their tune. But America has too.