A Gaza truce was holding on Wednesday as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israeli and Palestinian representatives on an enduring end to a war that has devastated the Hamas Islamist-dominated enclave.
A seven-hour "humanitarian window" announced by Israel has come into effect in parts of Gaza. The announcement came after an attack near a UN-run school in Gaza killed 10, sparking international outrage.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced in a joint statement on Friday that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu, facing global alarm over a rising civilian death toll in Gaza, said he would not accept any ceasefire that stopped Israel completing the destruction of militants' infiltration tunnels.
Israel launched a deadly attack on a United Nations school housing refugees in Gaza despite repeated warnings that civilians were sheltering there, the U.N. has said.
Gaza has seen one of its heaviest nights of bombardment in three weeks, after Israel's prime minister warned of a long conflict ahead. Gaza's only power plant was damaged as Israel carried out 60 air strikes.
There have been sporadic attacks by both Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza amid a relative lull in the violence of recent weeks. Earlier, the U.N. urged a halt to hostilities to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional proxies to nail down a Gaza ceasefire as the civilian death toll soared, threatening to spread Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
