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.

Hamas and Fatah gunmen fought in Gaza City’s beachfront neighbourhoods and around security compounds this morning, ignoring renewed truce appeals and Arab mediation efforts.

Fatah and Hamas clashed at Cabinet ministries, universities and security headquarters today in defiance of a truce that was to have calmed the seething Gaza Strip.

Fatah fighters stormed a Hamas-affiliated university yesterday — for the second time — hours before the two political factions grappling for control of the Palestinian government said they had agreed on a new ceasefire.

Fatah and Hamas gunmen battled each other at universities, a radio station and in streets across the Gaza Strip today with 17 people – including four children - dying before the factions’ leaders announced a cease-fire agreement.

Hamas fighters attacked a pro-Fatah radio station in Gaza, ambulances were caught in the crossfire and gunmen exchanged machine gun fire in deserted streets as factional battles refused to let up today.

Palestinian security arrested seven Iranian citizens during a raid at the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold in Gaza City, a security official said, and another committed suicide during the raid.

Israel called off airstrikes on the homes of two militants today after hundreds of Palestinians crowded around the buildings forming human shields, a new tactic that forced the Israelis to re-evaluate their aerial campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The rival Fatah and Hamas movements have agreed on a candidate for prime minister of their emerging coalition government, turning to a US-educated professor to end months of infighting and help lift a painful international aid boycott.

Israeli forces crossed into the Gaza Strip early today in a raid that captured a local Hamas militant leader and left his brother dead near a Gaza border town, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.

Militants holding an Israeli soldier today said they would give no further information about him because Israel ignored a deadline to release Palestinian prisoners.

An explosion in a car in Gaza City today killed the top commander of the Islamic Jihad’s military wing in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said.

Israel freed one of the co-founders of the militant Palestinian Hamas today after holding him without trial for the past 14 months.

Israel launched its revenge attacks for two suicide bombings with an air raid on a senior Hamas leader’s home in Gaza City today.

Hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims prayed in a southern Indian city today, seeking rain and a respite from a killer heatwave that has claimed 884 lives.

DESCRIBED by Israel as the Gaza Strip's "most brilliant and brutal terrorist," Salah Shehadeh spent more than a decade in Israeli and Palestinian jails, and for the last three years was often in hiding as he oversaw Hamas' frequent attacks.

Described by Israel as the Gaza Strip’s ‘‘most brilliant and brutal terrorist,’’ Salah Shehadeh spent more than a decade in Israeli and Palestinian jails, and for the last three years was often in hiding as he oversaw Hamas’ frequent attacks.

Four Palestinians died in back-to-back suicide attacks on Israeli targets today.