Hundreds of Palestinian families, their children crying, fled as Israel intensified airstrikes on Hamas targets, including homes of the movement’s leaders, following failed Egyptian ceasefire efforts.

Israel has fired missiles at the homes of four top Hamas leaders, the militant group said, in a resumed bombardment of Gaza following a failed Egyptian ceasefire effort.

People in Gaza fear further bombardment after Israel warned tens of thousands in the north and east to leave their homes.

Thousands fled their homes in a Gaza town yesterday after Israel warned them to leave ahead of threatened attacks on rocket-launching sites, on the sixth day of an offensive that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 160 people.

Israel briefly deployed ground troops inside the Gaza Strip for the first time today as its military warned Gazans to evacuate as part of a widening offensive that has killed more than 160 Palestinians.

Israel has widened its range of Gaza bombing targets to civilian institutions with suspected Hamas ties and announced it would hit northern Gaza "with great force" to prevent rocket attacks from there on Israel.

An Israeli envoy held talks with Egyptian officials today on a ceasefire in his country’s offensive on Gaza as Israel widened the range of its targets, striking more than a dozen homes of Hamas militants and two media officials.

THE United Nations urged Israel to reopen Gaza crossings as senior officials assessed war damage and the Jewish state warned it would strike again if Hamas rearms through smuggling tunnels.

Israel implemented a unilateral ceasefire early today in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighbourhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas.

Israeli forces pounded dozens of Hamas targets early today as the army kept up pressure on the Islamic militant group ahead of a crucial vote on whether to end Israel’s punishing three-week-long campaign against Gaza’s rulers.

Israeli forces pounded rocket-launching sites and smuggling tunnels in Gaza today and planes dropped leaflets warning of an escalation in attacks, as Palestinian militants fired at least 15 more rockets at Israel.

Israeli jets and ground troops continued to hammer Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and Islamic militants fired barrages of rockets at southern Israeli cities, defying a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Israeli forces pounded Gaza from air, land and sea today as a stream of diplomats headed for the region hoping to end the violence.

Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early today, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum.

Israel forces entered a northern Gaza town today and seized a local Hamas leader from his home amid heavy fighting with Palestinian gunmen, the Israeli military and Hamas militants said.

A six-year-old girl was killed and six other children injured in a large explosion in northern Gaza today, Palestinian health officials said.

Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian boys near the Gaza-Israel border fence today, Palestinian security and doctors said.

A militant commander affiliated with Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement was shot dead today.

A resurgence in factional violence in Gaza killed three Palestinians today, sparked a daylight gun battle and led to fears that an already fragile truce between Hamas and Fatah would completely collapse.

The oldest Palestinian suicide bomber, a 64-year-old widow, lived in a one-room shack and had so many grandchildren that relatives lost track of the number, but her daughter said Fatma Omar An-Najar was driven to lay down her life in an attack on Israelis because one grandson was killed and another disabled in clashes with troops.

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man this morning in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians reported.

The Israeli military today launched a three-pronged offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, killing a top Hamas commander, in its latest operation against Palestinian rocket squads.

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.

Tens of thousands of grieving Gazans, weeping in anguish and screaming for revenge, crammed into a cemetery today to bury 18 civilians killed by an errant Israeli artillery barrage that tore through a crowded residential neighbourhood.

Eighteen ambulances, flanked by Palestinian police cars, began the slow procession from hospital morgues in northern Gaza to the cemetery where 18 victims of an Israeli artillery attack were to be buried today.

Israel pressed forward with a stepped-up offensive in the Gaza Strip today, killing at least four people in two attacks in the coastal area.

A Palestinian was killed when an Israeli tank shell hit his truck early today, and Israeli aircraft struck targets in several parts of Gaza.

THE United Nations warns of food shortages. Hospitals refuse all non-emergency care to avoid running out of medicine.

Israel has rebuffed a ceasefire call from the Palestinian premier while leaving behind a wide path of destruction in northern Gaza and pounding militants in Gaza City with airstrikes.

Israeli forces renewed airstrikes at armed Palestinians in northern Gaza early today after a bloody day of clashes in which militants with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades faced Israeli tanks and attack helicopters.

An Israeli aircraft struck a group of Palestinians west of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip this afternoon, killing nine people, medical officials said.

Israeli forces today took over an area of northern Gaza that used to be home to three Jewish settlements, creating a temporary buffer zone meant to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

An Israeli probe of a blast that killed eight Palestinian civilians on a Gaza beach last Friday will announce that it almost certainly came from a Hamas militant mine and not an Israeli shell, military officials said today.

Israel’s security chiefs have met to discuss the Jewish state’s response to a suicide bombing at a packed Tel Aviv fast-food restaurant during the Passover holiday that killed nine people and injured dozens.

A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up at a fast food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Jewish holiday of Passover yesterday, killing himself and nine people and wounding dozens in the deadliest Palestinian attack in more than a year.

Israel today stood by its new policy of firing artillery shells at Palestinian rocket squads operating from populated areas in Gaza, even after a round killed an eight-year-old Palestinian girl.

The new Hamas-led Palestinian government is quietly working to end an upsurge in violence, urging rival militant groups in the Gaza Strip to refrain from launching rockets at Israel without official permission, officials on both sides confirmed today.

Amid tight security and a sea of green and yellow flags, Palestinians cast ballots today in their first parliamentary election in a decade – a cliffhanger vote on whether to pursue peace or confrontation with Israel.

The Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made an unexpectedly strong showing against key rival Hamas in local elections in dozens of West Bank towns and villages, according to final results published today.

THOUSANDS of masked Hamas gunmen marched in formation at a large victory rally in an empty Jewish settlement yesterday, the Islamic militant group’s latest show of strength since Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of masked Hamas gunmen marched in formation at a large victory rally in an empty Jewish settlement today, the Islamic militant group’s latest show of strength since Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas wants to postpone parliamentary elections until November, hoping to recapture some of the popular support his ruling Fatah party has lost, a spokesman for the Hamas militant group said today.

The Palestinian parliament election, now set for July 17, should be delayed, a top Palestinian official said in an interview published today, a sign of growing unease in the ruling Fatah party with electoral gains made by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah movement fended off a strong challenge by the Islamic militant group Hamas in local elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip today, with Fatah winning 56% and Hamas with 33% of the vote.