Israeli soldiers watch the northern Gaza Strip from southern Israel.

Negotiations on a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza appear to be at an impasse, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaning towards expanded military operations and Hamas demanding the humanitarian situation be addressed before it returns to talks.

Netanyahu will urge a meeting of the security cabinet on Tuesday to support the full “conquest of the Strip” according to reports in Israeli media that were described as accurate by a source familiar with the matter.

Israel’s Ynet cited senior officials close to Netanyahu as saying: “The die is cast – we’re going for full conquest. If the Chief of Staff doesn’t agree – he should resign.”

The source told CNN that the defense establishment opposes an expansion of ground operations in areas where the hostages are believed to be held, as it would risk putting them in harm’s way.

The report was criticized by a group of mothers of Israeli soldiers, saying it would be fatal for both hostages and soldiers. The Palestinian Authority called on the international community to intervene.

Asked about plans to widen the military campaign, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Monday it reflected “a wish to see all the hostages come back, and the wish to see the end of this war after the talks for a partial deal were not successful.”

It’s unclear whether the Israeli government’s approach is in line with that of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Witkoff spent three hours with the families of Israeli hostages on Saturday, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum quoted him as saying that the plan “is not to expand the war but to end it. We think the negotiations should be changed to all or nothing. End the war and bring all 50 hostages home at the same time – that’s the only way.”

“We have a plan to end the war and bring everyone home,” Witkoff reportedly added. “Someone will be to blame” if the remaining living hostages do not return to Israel still alive, he said, according to the forum.

When asked, Witkoff’s team did not offer any further information on the special envoy’s comments.

Trump said Sunday that Witkoff would likely be traveling to Moscow later in the week.

Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. There was widespread shock in Israel at the release of images by Hamas at the weekend of two of the hostages – Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski – looking weak and emaciated.

Netanyahu said the images demonstrated that Hamas “don’t want a deal. They want to break us with these horrifying videos, with the false horror propaganda they’re spreading around the world.”

However, the families forum warned the government against expanding the military campaign in Gaza.

“Netanyahu is preparing the greatest deception of all. The repeated claims of freeing hostages through military victory are a lie and a public fraud,” the forum said Sunday.

The forum called on Israel and Hamas to commit to bringing “the 50 hostages home, ending the war, and then rebuilding and reviving Israel,” the statement said.

Hamas has insisted it is committed to negotiations but only when “the catastrophic humanitarian situation” is addressed, according to Basem Naim, a senior Hamas political official.

Another Hamas official, Mahmoud Mardawi, told CNN last week there was “no point” in continuing talks as long as Gaza’s starvation crisis persists.

Hunger-related deaths in Gaza spiked in July, the World Health Organization said last week. Malnutrition rates reached “alarming levels,” with more than 5,000 children under five admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition in just the first two weeks of July, WHO said.

The Hamas-controlled Government Media Office in Gaza said Monday that 600 truckloads of aid were needed every day to alleviate the hunger crisis and claimed that in the past week an average of 84 trucks a day had entered the territory.

COGAT, the Israeli agency supervising the delivery of aid into Gaza, said Monday that more than 200 trucks were collected and distributed by the UN and international organizations on Sunday.

But many of the trucks that do get in are looted, either by desperate civilians or organized gangs.

The United Nations said on Friday that nearly 1,400 people have been killed since the end of May while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and 514 along the routes of food convoys.

The UN said that “most of the killings were committed by the Israeli military.”

Thirty people were killed on Sunday while trying to get food, 19 of them in the north and 11 in the vicinity of an aid site run by the GHF in Rafah, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Opinion polls in Israel have consistently shown a large majority in favor of ending the conflict in Gaza and securing the release of the hostages. A new survey by the Institute for National Security Studies found that 38% of Israeli Jews thought it was not possible to disarm Hamas; 57% thought it was possible.

On Monday, hundreds of retired Israeli security officials urged Trump to pressure Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza.

“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.

“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service.

But far-right members of the government are pushing for the occupation of much of Gaza and measures to encourage its population to leave the territory altogether.

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Russia's Medvedev warns of further steps after Moscow abandons missile moratorium

Russian former President Dmitry Medvedev blamed NATO countries on Monday for the abandonment of a moratorium on short- and medium-range nuclear missiles and said Moscow would take further steps in response.

Medvedev, who has been engaging in a exchange of acerbic barbs on social media with U.S. President Donald Trump, made his comments after Russia's Foreign Ministry said Moscow no longer considered itself bound by the moratorium on the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry's statement on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the result of NATO countries' anti-Russian policy," Medvedev posted in English on X.

"This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps."

Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of Russia's powerful Security Council, did not elaborate.

The U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in 2019, citing Russian non-compliance. Russia has since said it would not deploy such weapons provided that Washington did not do so.

However, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signalled last December that Moscow would have to respond to what he called "destabilising actions" by the U.S. and NATO in the strategic sphere.

"Since the situation is developing towards the actual deployment of U.S.-made land-based medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry notes that the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons have disappeared," the ministry said in its statement.

The INF treaty, signed in 1987 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, eliminated an entire class of weapons -- ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (311 to 3,418 miles).

Medvedev, seen initially in the West as a potential moderate and reformer, has become one of the most hawkish senior officials on foreign policy in Moscow.

Trump last Friday said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to "the appropriate regions" in response to remarks from Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.

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Who is Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian war hawk who got under Trump's skin?

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has become embroiled in a tense back-and-forth on social media that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to announce he had ordered the re-positioning of two U.S. nuclear submarines.

Who is Medvedev, what is his track record and how influential is he?

PRESIDENT WHO BRIEFLY RAISED HOPES IN THE WEST

Medvedev was elected Russian president in 2008 when Vladimir Putin, having served two terms, was barred from standing again under the law in force at that time. Medvedev ran the Kremlin for four years, with Putin as his prime minister but widely assumed by analysts in Russia and the West to be still calling the shots, before the two swapped places after the 2012 election - a political manoeuvre that provoked opposition protests.

Medvedev, the son of two university professors, had studied law and worked for a time in the private sector. Short in height and quietly spoken, he was described by contemporaries as cultured and intelligent.

As president, he was seen initially in the West as a potential moderniser and reformer, prepared to work to thaw relations with the United States. In 2009 he signed the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with President Barack Obama.

But Medvedev's presidency also saw Russia fight a brief war with its neighbour Georgia in 2008, and he failed to achieve his stated goals of tackling pervasive corruption, improving the rule of law in Russia, strengthening the role of civil society and rebalancing the economy to reduce its over-reliance on oil and gas production.

AFTER THE KREMLIN

Medvedev served as Putin's prime minister for eight years in a period in which tensions with the West escalated anew, particularly over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. But his political fortunes took a dive when he was removed in January 2020 and replaced by Mikhail Mishustin, who has held the post ever since. Medvedev was shunted into a new role as deputy chairman of the Security Council, a powerful body that includes the heads of Russia's intelligence services.

WAR CHEERLEADER

After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev carved out a new role for himself as an arch-hawk and full-throated champion of the war, hurling aggressive rhetoric at Kyiv and the West and warning repeatedly of the risk of a nuclear "apocalypse".

In May 2024 he said it would be a "fatal mistake" on the part of the West to think that Russia was not ready to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

He also spoke of the potential to strike unnamed hostile countries with strategic nuclear weapons.

His statements - including personal attacks on foreign leaders - were frequently designed to shock, insult and provoke. He referred to Ukrainians as "cockroaches", in language Kyiv condemned as openly genocidal, and called President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a criminal, a drug addict, a louse, a rat and a freak.

In January 2023, he accused Japan's prime minister of shameful subservience to the United States and suggested he should ritually disembowel himself.

Russian opposition figures have dismissed Medvedev's outpourings as sad, impotent rants. However, some Western diplomats say they give a flavour of the thinking in Kremlin policy-making circles. Until now, they have rarely provoked a direct response from Western leaders.

SPAT WITH TRUMP

That changed last month when Trump rebuked Medvedev and accused him of throwing around the "N" word after the Russian criticised U.S. air strikes on Iran and said "a number of countries" were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads.

When Trump imposed a deadline on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine or face further sanctions, including on buyers of its exports, Medvedev accused him of playing a "game of ultimatums" and moving a step closer to war between Russia and the U.S.

Trump retorted: "Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!"

Medvedev waded in again last Thursday, saying Trump's "nervous reaction" showed Russia was on the right course and referring again to Moscow's nuclear capabilities. Trump delivered his statement the following day on posting U.S. nuclear submarines in "the appropriate regions", since when Medvedev has not posted again.

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Kremlin Warns Against ‘Nuclear Rhetoric’ In Trump-Medvedev 

Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov during a meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Russia warned against “nuclear rhetoric” on Monday after an online feud between President Donald Trump and Russian former President Dmitry Medvedev led to the U.S. deploying two nuclear submarines last week.

“Russia is very cautious about nuclear nonproliferation matters, and we believe everyone should be very careful about nuclear rhetoric,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters.

“On the whole, certainly, we absolutely wouldn’t like to engage in such polemics, nor would we like to comment on that in any way,” Peskov said in response to a question about the deployment of the submarines.

What began as an online war of words between Trump and Medvedev escalated into nuclear brinkmanship on Friday when Trump said he had ordered the two nuclear submarines into “appropriate regions.”

Tensions have been growing between the U.S. and Russia as Trump has grown frustrated with Moscow’s unwillingness to agree to his terms to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Trump issued a 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine in early July, to which Medvedev responded that Russia “didn’t care” in a July 15 post on X.

Trump picked up the feud in a Truth Social on July 31: “Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”

Medvedev then made a veiled threat to use a Cold War-era Soviet nuclear capability known as “The Dead Hand,” which allows Moscow to launch nuclear strikes even if humans who would usually issue the orders to do so had been killed in a first strike.

Trump reacted to the “highly provocative” statement with an order to deploy the submarines. “I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Friday. The President later told the press that the deployment was to "protect our people."

The Kremlin appeared to seek to calm the mood on Monday, however. “There can be no winner in a nuclear war,” Peskov said. “This is probably the key premise we rely on. We do not think there is talk of any escalation.”

Together, the U.S. and Russia own more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, harboring nearly 90% of nuclear weapons across the globe. A single nuclear weapon in New York City could kill more than 580,000 people, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Trump has said that he would levy tariffs against Russia should they not broker a peace deal by the new Aug. 8 deadline.

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Kremlin plays down Trump submarine order, urges caution on nuclear rhetoric

Russia said on Monday that everyone should be "very, very careful" about nuclear rhetoric, responding to a statement by U.S. President Donald Trump that he had ordered a repositioning of U.S. nuclear submarines.

In its first public reaction to Trump's comments, the Kremlin played down their significance and said it was not looking to get into a public argument with him.

Trump said on Friday he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to "the appropriate regions" in response to remarks from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.

"In this case, it is obvious that American submarines are already on combat duty. This is an ongoing process, that’s the first thing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"But in general, of course, we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way," he added. "Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric."

The episode comes at a delicate moment, with Trump threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its oil, including India and China, unless President Vladimir Putin agrees by Friday to end the 3-1/2-year war in Ukraine.

Putin said last week that peace talks had made some positive progress but that Russia had the momentum in the war, signalling no shift in his position despite the looming deadline.

Trump has said he may send his envoy Steve Witkoff to Russia on Wednesday or Thursday. Witkoff has held long conversations with Putin on several previous visits but failed to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire.

The Kremlin declined to say if his latest proposed trip was taking place at Moscow's request, and did not say what it hoped might emerge from it.

"We are always happy to see Mr Witkoff in Moscow and we are always happy to have contacts with Mr Witkoff. We consider them important, meaningful and very useful," Peskov said.

ONLINE SPAT

Trump, who frequently promised to end the war within 24 hours while campaigning for the U.S. presidency last year, has spoken admiringly of Putin in the past but voiced increasing frustration with him of late.

Russia has stepped up the ferocity of its bombing attacks on Ukrainian cities, while three brief sessions of direct peace talks in Turkey have yielded no progress beyond exchanges of prisoners and war dead.

Some security analysts in both Russia and the West have criticised Trump for escalating an online spat with former president Medvedev - an arch-hawk whose statements are frequently designed to shock and provoke - to the point of publicly discussing U.S. nuclear deployments.

Peskov, however, said Russia did not see Trump's statement as marking an escalation in nuclear tension.

"We do not believe that we are talking about any escalation now. It is clear that very complex, very sensitive issues are being discussed, which, of course, are perceived very emotionally by many people," he said.

Peskov declined to answer directly when asked whether the Kremlin had tried to warn Medvedev to tone down his online statements.

"The main thing, of course, is the position of President Putin," he said.