Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have reached a preliminary, partial agreement that could pave the way for President Mahmoud Abbas to resume governing the Gaza Strip a decade after Hamas overran the territory, officials said.

The leader of Hamas has said his group has reached an agreement with the rival Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after Egyptian-brokered talks about the terms of control of the Gaza Strip.

A poll by the independent Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research on the post Operation Protective Edge found 68% of Gaza’s occupants supported last summer’s ‘Hamas rocket attacks’.

Hamas has agreed to extend a ceasefire for another five days, the head of the Palestinian delegation negotiating a truce with Israel has said.

Palestinian negotiators have been considering an Egyptian proposal to end the month-long Israel-Hamas war as the latest 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is due to expire.

At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in fighting in Gaza today, according to a health official, as Israel escalated its military offensive in the coastal strip.

Israeli air strikes pummelled a wide range of targets in the Gaza Strip today as the UN chief and the US Secretary of State began an intensive effort to end more than two weeks of fighting that has killed at least 570 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.

The overall Palestinian death toll passed 560 as high-level attempts to end Israel-Hamas fighting hit serious problems.

The Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and president Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) have agreed to a unity pact, both sides announced in a joint news conference yesterday.

Egypt’s new government has imposed the toughest border restrictions on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in years, sealing smuggling tunnels, blocking most passenger traffic and causing millions of pounds in economic losses.

The Fatah party of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has staged a massive rally in the Gaza Strip, the first such gathering in the territory since the Islamist Hamas group took control there in 2007.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded nine along Gaza’s border fence with Israel today, reports say.

Hamas leaders in Gaza declared victory over Israel today and thousands of flag-waving supporters rallied in celebration as the battered territory entered its first day of calm under an Egyptian-brokered truce.

Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early today widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister’s headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

Egypt’s prime minister has rushed to the aid of the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers in the middle of an Israeli offensive as Palestinian rocket squads aimed at Tel Aviv for a second straight day.

Israel offered to suspend its offensive in the Gaza Strip today during a brief visit by Egypt’s premier if militants refrain from firing rockets at Israel, an official said.

Palestinian militants barraged Israel with more than 200 rockets today, killing three people, as Israel pressed a punishing campaign of air strikes on militant targets across the Gaza Strip.

The supreme leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas is to step down, clearing the way for the movement to choose a new head for the first time in more than 15 years, senior officials said.

The Gaza Strip erupted in celebratory gunfire today with news that the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate had secured the presidency in neighbouring Egypt.

Palestinian militants have launched three more rockets into Israel but there were no casualties, officials say.

ISRAELI forces have boarded protest boats trying to break its naval blockade of Gaza, the military said.

Israeli forces have boarded an Irish ship sailing in a so-called 'Freedom Waves' aid convoy to Gaza, it was confirmed this afternoon.

Four people were reported to have been shot dead today when the Israeli military opened fire on a group of Syrians trying to cross the border along the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

THOUSANDS of people thronged squares in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to plead with their leaders to end the long-running feud that has divided the Palestinian people between two rival governments.

THE Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter advocates the elimination of Israel, would accept the outcome of a Palestinian referendum on a future peace treaty with the Jewish state, its Gaza leader said yesterday.

Thousands of Afghans were protesting today over suspended plans by a small American church to burn the Koran.

Israeli warships attacked at least one of the six ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists and aid for blockaded Gaza today, killing at least ten and wounding an unknown number of people on board, reports said.

A SURPRISED world greeted the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama with a mixture of praise and scepticism.

HAMAS militants yesterday traded a two-minute video showing an apparently unharmed captured Israeli soldier for 19 Palestinian women held in Israeli jails – the first tangible step toward defusing a key flashpoint in Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

Israel said today it would not conduct an independent inquiry into its conduct in the Gaza Strip war, rejecting a key recommendation from an explosive UN report that accused the Jewish state of war crimes.

FROM a hideout in Gaza, the head of the Hamas government called for reconciliation between bitterly divided Palestinian factions and expressed hope for better relations with the US.

Israeli troops advanced into Gaza suburbs for the first time early today, residents said, hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamic militants that they face an “iron fist” unless they agree to Israeli terms for an end to war in the Gaza Strip.

Israel defied mounting international pressure for a ceasefire and continued its devastating air attacks on Gaza today.

Israel today warned the people of Gaza that its attacks which have so far killed more than 300 were a "war to the bitter end".

Israel has called up thousands of reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion as it widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Warplanes pressing one of Israel’s deadliest assaults ever on Palestinian militants dropped bombs and missiles on a top security installation, a mosque, a TV station and dozens of other targets across the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip today.

Israeli warplanes blasted targets all over Gaza early today, including a mosque and a TV station, after a day of intensive airstrikes that killed more than 200 Palestinians.

HAMAS released 17 jailed members of the rival Fatah faction yesterday, describing the men for the first time as political prisoners and saying it set them free as a goodwill gesture before Palestinian unity talks.

Israel is to allow a pro-Palestinian activist group to sail two boats carrying humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, after earlier hinting it would block the shipment from reaching the coastal territory.

BRITISH prime minister Gordon Brown demanded that Israel cease settlement construction and promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.

Critics of Israel’s prisoner exchange with Lebanese guerrillas said that such deals only encourage more hostage-taking – a fear underscored by Gaza militants who said the swap proves that kidnapping is the only language Israel understands.

Dozens of Palestinians handed out sweets and waved yellow Hezbollah flags to celebrate what they saw as a major victory in Israel’s return of five Lebanese prisoners.

PALESTINIAN militants fired 50 rockets and mortars toward Israel yesterday, who responded with airstrikes in Gaza, just hours before a truce was to take effect, illustrating how fragile the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would be.

Reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions will continue tomorrow, as Hamas' top leaders seek approval for the final draft of a Yemeni-sponsored agreement, Yemen's foreign minister said tonight.

Israeli ground troops pulled out of northern Gaza before daybreak today, following the first extended sweep in their offensive against Palestinian rocket salvos that has left more than 100 dead and led the Palestinian president to call off US-sponsored peace talks.

Israel today rejected growing international criticism of its crackdown on Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, pushing forward with an offensive that has killed more than 100 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, in recent days.

Gaza was faced with the threat on a full-scale Israeli invasion tonight after a barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks hit border towns.

Six Palestinian militants, including the son of a hardline Hamas leader, were killed in an Israeli air strike today.

A series of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed four Hamas militants early today, raising the Palestinian death toll in the past day to 15, including a baby.