Israel orders evacuations in northern Gaza amid Trump's ceasefire push

On Saturday, Trump had said on Truth Social that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the process of negotiating a deal with Hamas \"right now\".

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Sunday that the Israeli military was operating in north Gaza \"to eliminate terrorists and terrorist infrastructure\".

Medics and residents told Reuters that military bombardments increased in Gaza in the early hours of Sunday, destroying several houses.

Gaza's Hamas-run civil defence agency told news outlets that at least 23 people had been killed on Sunday alone.

Medics said five people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people in al-Mawasi near the southern city of Khan Younis - an area where people in the north had been told to evacuate to.

Five members of the Maarouf family, including three children, were killed.

\"They bombed us while we were sleeping on the ground,\" their mother Iman Abu Maarouf said. \"We didn't do anything wrong. My children were killed, and the rest are in intensive care.\"

Their father Zeyad Abu Maarouf told Reuters that the family had arrived in the \"safe zone\" a month ago after Israel told them to go to al-Mawasi.

The BBC has contacted the Israeli military for comment.

The increased military action comes as mediators begin new efforts to end the war and release the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled.

Qatari mediators have said they hope US pressure could help to achieve a deal, following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day conflict between the countries.

Trump previously said he was hopeful a ceasefire in Gaza could be agreed in the next week.

In March, a two-month ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its hostages.

Israel also imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March, which it partially eased after 11 weeks following pressure from US allies and warnings from global experts that half a million people were facing starvation.

That partial easing included the creation of a US and Israeli-backed aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), after Israel accused Hamas of stealing aid. Hamas has denied this.

GHF's aid system has been condemned by UN agencies. There have been repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

Juliette Touma, communications director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, told the BBC that the new mechanism was \"a killing field\". She said the distribution of aid in an orderly way could only be done through the UN and other humanitarian organisations.

GHF boss Johnnie Moore previously told the BBC World Service's Newshour he did not deny deaths near aid sites, but said \"100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF\" and that was \"not true\".