Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service.
We're coming to you live from London.
I'm James Menendez.
And we're going to begin the programme today with what's happening in Gaza.
Because in the past couple of hours,
the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he's ordered the start of immediate negotiations to end the war and secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages being held by Hamas on terms,
as he put it, acceptable to Israel.
We'll be hearing what that means in practice in a moment,
because it comes at the same time as Israel starting to expand its military operations in the territory,
something we touched on last night,
with the bombardment of districts on the outskirts of Gaza City and some fighting on the ground too.
It is an offensive that's been widely condemned internationally.
Here's the head of the UN Agency for Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini.
For the Palestinians who are in Gaza City and in the north,
it's a population that is already starved.
It's a population that is weakened and that certainly won't find the necessary resources to get to the south.
It's a huge military operation that we're talking about today,
and we're still talking about a million civilians who are in the region.
So everything you've heard in recent weeks, all the appeals from the international community,
from the UN Secretary General, please talk about a ceasefire and a truce.