Israel begins extensive Gaza ground operation after intense airstrikes kill more than 100 overnight

By Mostafa Salem, Eugenia Yosef, Ibrahim Dahman, Kara Fox and Dana Karni, CNN

(CNN) — Israel launched an extensive ground operation in Gaza Sunday in addition to an intense air campaign that health officials in the territory say killed over 100 people overnight and shuttered the last functioning hospital in the enclave’s north.

The Israeli military’s ground operation in northern and southern Gaza comes as international mediators push for progress in ceasefire talks.

Hamas and Israel began indirect talks in the Qatari capital Doha Saturday, with senior Hamas official Taher Al-Nunu confirming that “negotiations without preconditions” had started, according to Hamas-run al Aqsa TV.

While there is some optimism around the talks, a breakthrough is looking uncertain. Israel on Sunday indicated its openness to ending the war in Gaza if Hamas surrenders, a proposition the militant group is unlikely to accept.

“If Hamas wants to talk about ending the war through Hamas’s surrender, we will be ready,” an Israeli source said.

A senior Hamas leader told CNN Sunday that the group had agreed to release between seven and nine Israeli hostages in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 300 Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli military has claimed that their new military campaign – called “Gideon’s Chariots,” a reference to a biblical warrior, and announced late on Friday – has brought Hamas back to the negotiating table.

The campaign was launched “to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza, including the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

But analysts and officials say it’s more likely that Hamas agreed to restart the talks following a visit from US President Donald Trump to the Middle East.

“Following discussions between Qatar and the US during President Trump’s visit to Doha, there is a renewed push by mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt to see if a new ceasefire agreement can be reached,” an official with knowledge of the talks told CNN.

This past week, Netanyahu directed the Israeli negotiating team to head to Qatar for talks, but made clear that he is only committed to negotiating a proposal put forward by the US’ Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, which calls for the release of half the hostages in return for a temporary ceasefire. That proposal did not guarantee an end to the war.

Trump was in Doha Wednesday as part of a Middle East trip that skipped Israel. Trump said this month that he wanted an end to the “brutal war” in Gaza.

He also bypassed Israel twice this month in reaching bilateral deals with regional militant groups. Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage last week, and the Houthis agreed to stop firing at American ships in the Red Sea while pledging to continue fighting Israel.

Trump, however, denied that Israel had been sidelined. “This is good for Israel,” he said. But on Thursday, he said he wanted the US to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone.”

“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good, make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,” Trump said from Qatar.

While in the Gulf, Trump also acknowledged that people are starving in Gaza and said the US would have the situation in Gaza “taken care of.”

Entire families killed

Meanwhile, the UN and prominent aid organizations are raising the alarm over Israel’s new offensive in Gaza, saying it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the assault.

More than 300 people have been killed and over 1,000 others injured after Israel ramped up intense airstrikes since Thursday, according to a CNN count of this week’s Palestinian Ministry of Health data.

Entire families were killed while sleeping together, according to the health ministry.

In the Al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza, an infant, his two young siblings and their parents, who were all living in a displacement camp, were killed on Saturday, Dr. Munir al-Barsh, the health ministry’s director, told CNN.

As the bombardment continues and the death toll rises, Gaza’s healthcare system is being pushed further to the brink.

Over the past week, the Israeli military has carried out strikes near several hospitals across the enclave, including the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya, the last remaining functioning medical facility in northern Gaza, rendering it out of service.

Dr. Munir Al-Sultan, the director of the hospital said Friday that there were “extremely intense explosions” around the hospital, which severed the connections to ventilators that some of their patients require to stay alive. CNN has reached out to the Israel for comment on the strike – the military frequently accuses Hamas of sheltering in such facilities.

On Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that “all public hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip are now out of service.”

The UN is now warning that over 2.1 million people – the enclave’s entire population – is facing a risk of famine, following 19 months of conflict and mass displacement, now exacerbated by Israel’s 11-week blocking of aid.

On Friday, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement that the renewed bombing campaign was equivalent to ethnic cleansing.

“This latest barrage of bombs… 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,” Turk said.

The number of people killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks now exceeds 53,000 – the majority of whom are women and children, the health ministry said Thursday.

Despite the resumption of talks in Qatar, Omar Qandil, whose brother, sister-in-law and 4-month-old niece were killed in an overnight airstrike in central Gaza, said he feels the world has turned a blind eye to their suffering.

“They were all asleep… all targeted in their bedroom,” he said.

“I don’t know what we (can) say anymore, we (have) spoke a lot. There is no one looking at us: not Arabs not Muslims, no one.”

CNN’s Eyad Kourdi and Abeer Salman contributed reporting. Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, also contributed to this article.

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