Israel’s military announced “extensive ground operations” Sunday as part of its newly expanded campaign in the Gaza Strip, where rescuers reported dozens killed in a wave of strikes.The announcement came just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled Israel was open to a deal with Hamas that involved “ending the fighting” in the besieged Palestinian territory.The military said that over the past day, troops had “begun extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.It said they had “eliminated dozens of terrorists, dismantled terrorist infrastructure… and are currently being deployed in key positions”.Israel says its ramped-up campaign aims to free hostages and defeat Hamas, but as it got underway Saturday, Israel and the group were entering indirect talks in Qatar aimed at hammering out a deal.In a statement Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said “the negotiation team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal — whether according to the Witkoff framework or as part of ending the fighting”.Steve Witkoff is the US Middle East envoy who has been involved in previous discussions.Netanyahu’s statement said such a deal “would include the release of all the hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip”.Since a two-month ceasefire collapsed in March as Israel resumed its offensive, negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to make a breakthrough.Netanyahu has opposed ending the war without Hamas’s total defeat, while Hamas has balked at the prospect of handing over its weapons.Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu previously said the Doha talks had begun “without any preconditions from either side”.A Hamas source familiar with the negotiations said the group was willing “to release all Israeli hostages in one batch, provided that a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire agreement is reached”, but Israel “wants to release its prisoners in one batch or in two batches in exchange for a temporary truce”.Speaking to troops in Gaza Sunday, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir said the military would “provide flexibility to the political echelon to advance any hostage deal”.”A hostage deal is not a halt, it is an achievement. We are actively working toward it,” he said.Air raid sirens sounded in southern Israel on Sunday afternoon, as the army said two projectiles were launched from Gaza, with one intercepted. The military later issued an evacuation order for several parts of Gaza ahead of an attack, warning it would “launch a powerful strike on any area used for launching rockets”.- ‘No one left’ -On the ground, Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP at least 50 people had been killed Sunday “as a result of ongoing Israeli air strikes since the early hours”.He said 22 people died and at least 100 others wounded in a pre-dawn attack on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip.AFPTV footage showed people sifting through ruined shelters and rescuers treating the wounded.”All my family members are gone. There is no one left,” said a distraught Warda al-Shaer.”The children were killed as well as their parents. My mother died too, and my niece lost her eye.”The military said in a statement that a “preliminary wave” of air strikes over the past week had hit “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations”.- Hospitals ‘out of service’ -Israel has faced increasing pressure to lift its aid blockade, as UN agencies warn of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicine.Marwan al-Hams, director of field hospitals at Gaza’s health ministry, told AFP that since the blockade began, “57 children have died in Gaza as a result of famine, but in the coming days, this number will increase due to the depletion of available food supplies”.AFP was not able to independently verify the figure.The UN had warned of the risk of famine in Gaza long before the aid blockade was imposed, and doctors at Kamal Adwan hospital told the World Health Organization last year at least 10 children had starved to death.The ministry also accused Israel Sunday of besieging the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, cutting off access and “effectively forcing the hospital out of service”.It said the shutdown meant “all public hospitals in the North Gaza Governorate are now out of service”.Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Hamas also took 251 hostages during the attack, 57 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday at least 3,193 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,339.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday his country would keep enriching uranium “with or without a deal” with world powers, despite ongoing negotiations over its nuclear programme.”If the US is interested in ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, a deal is within reach, and we are ready for a serious conversation to achieve a solution that will forever ensure that outcome,” Araghchi posted on X.”Enrichment in Iran, however, will continue with or without a deal,” he said.Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67-percent limit set in the 2015 deal but below the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead.Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are for civilian purposes only, and entirely peaceful.It also insists its right to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes is “non-negotiable”, but says it would be open to temporary restrictions on how much uranium it enriches and to what level.On Wednesday, Iranian atomic energy agency chief Mohammad Eslami reiterated that Tehran “does not seek nuclear militarisation”, and said enrichment was under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog.”The dismantling of enrichment is not accepted by Iran,” Eslami said.Araghchi also said Sunday the country was ready to rebuild trust with European powers considering whether to reimpose UN sanctions on the Islamic republic under a 2015 nuclear deal.”Iran is ready, should it observe genuine will and an independent approach from the European parties, to begin a new chapter in its relations with Europe,” he told a diplomatic forum in Tehran.”If Europe possesses the necessary will to rectify this path, Iran sees no obstacle to rebuilding mutual trust and expanding relations.” On Friday, senior Iranian diplomats met counterparts from Britain, France and Germany for talks on the status of US-Iran nuclear negotiations.- ‘Snapback’ mechanism -Tehran has held four rounds of nuclear talks with Washington, the highest-level contact between the two foes since the United States abandoned the 2015 nuclear accord.US President Donald Trump effectively torpedoed the deal in 2018 during his first term, by unilaterally pulling out and reimposing sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and banking sector.A year later, Iran began rolling back its commitments to the agreement, which had offered sanctions relief in return for UN-monitored restrictions on its nuclear activities.The three European powers — party to the 2015 accord — are weighing whether to trigger the “snapback” mechanism, which would reinstate UN sanctions in response to Iranian non-compliance. That option expires in October.Araghchi earlier this month warned of “irreversible” consequences if Britain, France and Germany moved to reimpose sanctions.He had previously proposed visiting London, Paris and Berlin for discussions on the nuclear issue as well as other areas “of mutual interest and concern”.In his speech on Sunday, he urged the Europeans to focus more on shared interests rather than differences.He said the Europeans should have a greater role in the US-Iran nuclear talks.”We want Europe to play its role, even if it has minimised its own role,” the IRNA news agency quoted Araghchi as saying.The Oman-mediated nuclear talks aim to conclude a new deal that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — an ambition Tehran has consistently denied — in exchange for lifting the sanctions.On the sidelines of the forum Araghchi met his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani.An Omani foreign ministry statement said Albusaidi and Araghchi discussed ways of reaching “the desired agreement between the United States and Iran”.