<blockquote><b>Hamas says its negotiators have opened a new round of talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza, hours after Israel launched a major offensive</b>.<br><br><b>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</b>.<br><br><b>Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said Hamas negotiators were returning to indirect talks in Qatar to seek a deal on the hostages</b>.<br><br><b>Katz called the move a "departure from the recalcitrant position they had taken up until that moment"</b>.<br><br>It came after Israel's military said on its Hebrew X account that troops had been mobilised for <i>"Operation Gideon's Chariots" to seize "strategic areas" of Gaza and free hostages</i>.<br><br>In similar posts on its English-language X account, <i>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</i>.<br><br><b>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</b>.<br><br><b>Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, are expected to enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days</b>.<br><br>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.<br><br>Rescuers from the Hamas-run civil defence, Gaza's main emergency service, said Israeli attacks have killed over 300 people since Thursday.<br><br>Reuters news agency reported at least 146 Palestinians had been killed over the past 24 hours and many more injured, citing local health authorities.<br><br><b>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</b>.<br><br><b>Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month said that Israel was preparing an "intense entry into Gaza" to capture and hold territory</b>.<br><br><b>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</b>.<br><br>UN Secretary General Antnio Guterres said he was "alarmed" by Israel's latest offensive in Gaza.<br><i>"I reject the repeated displacement of the populationalong with any question of forced displacement outside of Gaza,"</i> he said on X.<br><br>UN Human Rights Chief Volker Trk echoed the condemnation, <i>adding that Israel's operation is "tantamount to ethnic cleansing."</i>.<br><br><b>Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani both called for a permanent ceasefire to stop the killing in Gaza on Saturday</b>.<br><br>Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that her team were "exhausted" and staff had lost a "considerable amount of weight".<br><br><b>"The children are really thin," she said. "We've got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out</b>.<br><br><b>"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."</b>.<br><br>A UN-backed assessment published on Monday found Gaza's population to be at "critical risk" of famine.<br><br>The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.<br><br>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.<br><br>At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.</blockquote><br><a rel=ugc href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7geg3lvz1o">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7geg3lvz1o</a>
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