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.

Islamic State militants have ambushed a police convoy in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing 18 police and wounding seven others.

ENGLAND: The owner of a top-rated bistro smelled a rat when a customer pulled a rodent from his pocket and shouted out in alarm in an attempt to get a free meal.

Israeli airstrikes have levelled a seven-floor office building and severely damaged a two-storey commercial building with dozens of shops, Gaza police say.

An Israeli air strike killed three senior Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a clear sign of its intention to hit the group’s armed leadership days after a ceasefire failed.

Medical officials in Gaza City say an Israeli air strike has killed four people who were attending a funeral.

Islamic militant group Hamas said three of its senior military leaders have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian police say at least six people were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated neighbourhood in the Gaza Strip.

The European Union has offered to take charge of Gaza’s border crossings and work to prevent illegal arms flows, insisting on a durable truce and saying a return to the status quo before the latest war “is not an option”.

Germany, France and Britain have proposed reactivating a European Union mission on the Egypt-Gaza border to help stabilise the Palestinian enclave after a month-long war, a German diplomatic source said.

Israel said it withdrew the last of its ground forces from Gaza today as it and Hamas began a temporary ceasefire.

Israel has resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip, ending a self-declared, seven-hour ceasefire that was in effect for much of the day.

An Israeli air strike killed a militant leader in the Gaza Strip today, just hours ahead of a seven-hour truce announced by Israel which was meant to open a “humanitarian window” for aid.

Israel withdrew most of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip yesterday in an apparent winding-down of the nearly month-long operation against Hamas that has left more than 1,800 Palestinians and 60 Israelis dead.

Ten people have been killed by a strike near a United Nations school in the embattled coastal territory, a Gaza health official said.

An Israeli soldier feared by the the military to have been abducted by Palestinian gunmen in a firefight that shattered Gaza’s temporary ceasefire has been declared dead.

Israeli forces, backed by heavy tank fire and air strikes, have moved deeper into southern Gaza in search of a soldier apparently captured in a clash with Hamas militants earlier in the day.

Israeli forces, backed by heavy tank fire and air strikes, have moved deeper into southern Gaza in search of a soldier apparently captured in a clash with Hamas militants earlier in the day.

At least 35 Palestinians have been killed by shelling in Gaza and the Israeli military says one of its soldiers may have been abducted.

At least four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli tank fire nearly two hours after Israel and Hamas began observing a three-day ceasefire, Gaza officials have said.

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.

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

The UN chief and the US secretary of state are heading to Cairo to try to end two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza which has killed at least 500 Palestinians and 20 Israelis and displaced tens of thousands of people.

A rocket fired from Gaza has landed in Israel just as a five-hour ceasefire expired, the Israeli military says.

Three mortar shells have been fired from Gaza into Israel after a humanitarian ceasefire came into effect, according to the Israeli military.

A suicide bomber has rammed his explosive-laden car into one of two buses carrying off-duty soldiers in Egypt’s turbulent region of northern Sinai, killing 10 and wounding 35.

Egypt’s army-backed authorities detained the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader yesterday, signalling their determination to crush the group and silence protests against the ousting of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The supreme leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been arrested, dealing a serious blow to the group as it tries to maintain street protests over the removal of president Mohammed Morsi.

Egyptian troops have opened fire on protesters marching in support of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, killing at least one and wounding several more.

Egyptian troops have opened fire on supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi as they marched on a Republican Guard facility.

HAVING been stopped from reaching Gaza on two previous occasions, crossing over the border was a moment realised.

A ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers brought an end to eight days of the fiercest fighting in years and possibly signalling a new era of relations between the bitter enemies.

Israel killed a leading Hamas military leader in an airstrike today that signalled the opening of a new offensive on Gaza.

An Israeli soldier has been injured in an explosion along the Gaza security fence, ahead of a scheduled visit by the ruler of Qatar to the Palestinian territory, Israel’s military said today.

Almost a decade after their daughter was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she tried to block its path in a Gaza Strip conflict zone, Rachel Corrie’s parents are preparing for a judge’s ruling in their high-profile civil lawsuit against the military.

Egyptian troops and security forces have detained nine Islamic militants in northern Sinai believed to be behind a surprise attack last weekend that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, a security official said.

Masked gunmen killed 16 Egyptian soldiers at a checkpoint along the border with Gaza and Israel, the first such attack on troops.

A new strain of foot and mouth disease has reached the Gaza Strip and threatens to spread further after first being detected in Egypt and Libya in February, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has said.

Israel has begun began the process of formally pardoning hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who are to be exchanged for an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants for five years.

Egypt today permanently opened the Gaza Strip’s main gateway to the outside world, bringing long-awaited relief to the territory’s Palestinian population and a significant achievement for the area’s ruling Hamas militant group.

Egypt will open its only crossing with the Gaza Strip this weekend, the Cairo military government announced today, significantly easing a four-year blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory but setting up a potential conflict with Israel.

Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel today and Israeli warplanes killed four militants in the Gaza Strip in the most intense fighting since Israel's 2008-2009 offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory.

A bomb went off in an empty church in a small town in northern Egypt today, causing little damage and no injuries, security officials said.

A Gaza Palestinian border official says Egypt has closed its border with the Hamas-ruled territory amid the raging turmoil.

PRESSURE on Isreal to lift the blockade on Gaza has been increasing since their army attacked a flotilla of vessels attempting to bring aid to the beseiged area.

Israel today deported the last of the nearly 700 foreign activists held in its deadly raid on the Gaza aid flotilla.

Israeli sources have said they will intercept an Irish ship bound for Gaza.

TWELVE Irish people have been caught up in violence between Egyptian police and members of a convoy bringing humanitarian aid destined for Gaza, with their families concerned that they are entering “a war zone”.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said today it was doing everything possible to ensure the safety of Irish volunteers participating in an aid convoy to Gaza which last night was caught up in clashes with Egyptian police.

Hamas security forces killed the leader of an al-Qaida-inspired group in the Gaza Strip today in a shootout that claimed the lives of 22 people, Hamas said.