Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks. We're beginning in Gaza, because Israel may have yet to deliver its formal response to the latest ceasefire plan drawn up by Egyptian and Qatari mediators and accepted by Hamas.

We're told that that formal response should come tomorrow.

But the signs at the moment suggest it won't accept the proposal.

That despite the fact it appears to be very close to one that Israel did sign up to back in May,

one that came from the US envoy Steve Wittkoff.

As for those signs I mentioned, well, there was an interview I did a couple of days ago

with the Israeli government spokesman David Menser backing up what other unnamed Israeli officials

were saying, saying that we're not interested in partial deals anymore.

We want all the hostages back in one go and Hamas,

completely erased in the Gaza Strip.

The second sign might be in what's happening today

with Israel expanding its offensive

around the enclave's largest city, Gaza City, in the north,

home to a million people.

The Zaytun and Sabra neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city of come under intense bombardment.

The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, expressed his alarm about the Israeli Prime Minister's

declared intention for the Israeli military to seize control over the whole of Gaza City.

I must reiterate that it is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza

and the unconditional release of all hostages

and to avoid the massive deaths and destruction

that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably

...