Anadolu/Getty ImagesHamas says its negotiators have opened a new round of talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza, hours after Israel launched a major offensive.
Taher al-Nounou, an adviser to the head of Hamas, told the BBC a new round of negotiations had officially begun in Doha on Saturday. There were no preconditions from either side, and all issues were on the table for discussion.
Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said Hamas negotiators were returning to indirect talks in Qatar to seek a deal on the hostages.
Katz called the move a “departure from the recalcitrant position they had taken up until that moment”.
It came after Israel’s military said on its Hebrew X account that troops had been mobilised for “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” to seize “strategic areas” of Gaza and free hostages.
In similar posts on its English-language X account, it said it would not stop operating “until Hamas is no longer a threat and all our hostages are home”, and that it had “struck over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in 24 hours.
The Times of Israel said that “Gideon’s Chariots” – a reference to a biblical warrior – would see the IDF take and control territory, move civilians to the south of the Strip, attack Hamas, and prevent it from taking control of aid supplies.
Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, are expected to enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days.
Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Strip in March after the breakdown of a two-month ceasefire. US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people were starving” in Gaza.
Rescuers from the Hamas-run civil defence, Gaza’s main emergency service, said Israeli attacks have killed around 250 people since Thursday.
Reuters news agency reported at least 146 Palestinians had been killed over the past 24 hours and many more injured, citing local health authorities.
Residents in many parts of northern and central Gaza have been told to leave their homes or places of shelter – an order aid workers say is almost impossible because many have already been repeatedly made homeless during the war.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month said that Israel was preparing an “intense entry into Gaza” to capture and hold territory.
His government said it would not commence until Trump had completed a tour of the Middle East. The US president left the region on Friday.
ReutersUN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has warned that Israel’s recent escalation could be considered a breach of international law.
“This latest barrage of bombs, forcing people to move amid the threat of intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” he said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was “troubled” by the situation.
Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told the BBC World Service’s Today programme that her team were “exhausted” and staff had lost a “considerable amount of weight”.
“The children are really thin,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out.
“A lot of them have quite significant burn injuries and with this level of malnutrition they’re so much more prone to infection and they’ve got so much less capacity to heal.”
A UN-backed assessment published on Monday found Gaza’s population to be at “critical risk” of famine.
The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.
Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Hamas still holds 58 hostages.
At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
