Israeli tank shells hit a compound housing a UN school in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens who were seeking shelter from fierce clashes on the streets outside.

The UN’s senior human rights official has told diplomats that Israel’s military and Hamas militants appear to have violated international humanitarian law and might have committed war crimes during their two-week war in the Gaza Strip.

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.

The UN Security Council has called for an "immediate ceasefire" as Israel's assault on Gaza continues.

Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes have escalated their ground offensive, battling Hamas militants in a crowded neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Israeli shelling killed four boys on a Gaza beach yesterday, a local health official said, and Palestinian militants fired more than 100 rockets into Israel after a failed Egyptian attempt to halt more than a week of warfare.

Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault targeting hundreds of Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip yesterday.

The Israeli army has intensified its offensive on the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing at least 14 people on the second day of a military operation.

Israel has launched its largest offensive in the Gaza Strip in nearly two years, carrying out a blistering aerial assault on scores of targets and killing 25 people.

The Israeli military has launched what could be a long-term offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, striking at least 50 sites in Gaza by air and sea.

Israeli troops fired on Gazans as they surged towards their border fence, killing one person but leaving intact the fragile two-day-old ceasefire between Hamas and the Jewish state.

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

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza today, killing three Hamas militants and three civilians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Israeli settlement building anywhere on occupied land is illegal and must be stopped, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said today, after getting a closer look at some of the Israeli enclaves scattered across Palestinian-claimed territories.

Israel’s Security Cabinet will meet today to consider a possible prisoner exchange with Hamas, freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a soldier captured in June 2007.

HAMAS officials said yesterday an agreement with Israel on a long-term ceasefire in Gaza could be announced within days, but a new cycle of attacks by both sides strained a temporary truce.

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 edged closer to Gaza’s major population centres today attacking new targets and taking more civilian lives after ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate ceasefire.

ISRAELI troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars along the Gaza-Israel border on Wednesday, raising new concerns that an increasingly shaky five-month-old truce might collapse.

Thousands of Palestinians, including journalists and rival politicians, marched through Gaza City today for the funeral of a TV cameraman killed while covering a Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza staged protests against US president George Bush’s visit today.

An Israeli warplane today attacked the home of a senior Palestinian militant killed by Israeli troops last week.

Israeli troops backed by airstrikes today killed five Palestinians, including two civilians, in an operation against rocket launchers in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and Palestinian medics said.

An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza Strip early today, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.

A powerful explosion went off in a house in southern Gaza today, killing two women and a 4-year-old girl, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

Israeli troops backed by tanks and bulldozers crossed into southern Gaza to strike at Palestinian militants today, a day after Israel’s defence minister said a broad operation inside the territory was inevitable.

Israeli troops and aircraft attacked Islamic militants in the southern Gaza Strip today, killing two Hamas fighters and two civilians, militant factions and Palestinian medical officials said.

Israeli troops and aircraft attacked Islamic militants in the southern Gaza Strip today, killing two Hamas fighters and two civilians and wounding 15 people.

Israeli military officials have denied Palestinian reports of an air strike and artillery fire near Gaza City this morning in which Palestinians said three people were killed.

A new Palestinian Cabinet will be sworn in today in a move which Hamas claims is illegal.

Embattled Mahmoud Abbas got a major boost in his increasingly bellicose showdown with Hamas tonight, with a US diplomat saying he expects a crippling 15-month-old foreign aid embargo to be lifted once the Palestinian president appoints an emergency government without the Islamic militants.

A MASKED Hamas fighter sat down at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s desk yesterday and declared an end to the Western-backed authority in the Gaza Strip — in an imaginary telephone call to the United States.

Hamas fighters overran one of the rival Fatah movement's most important Palestinians security installations in the Gaza Strip today.

Hamas neared control of the entire Gaza Strip after a day of battles in the region during which rival Fatah forces were dislodged from key positions.

Hamas pounded Gaza City’s three main security compounds and President Mahmoud Abbas’ headquarters with mortars, grenades and assault rifles today, calling on beleaguered Fatah forces to surrender, in an apparent attempt to take control of the entire Gaza Strip.

The Al Aqsa TV and radio stations, allied with Hamas, came under fire from Palestinian security forces today, employees said.

Hamas and Fatah gunmen traded fire at a hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis today.

Israel unleashed four air strikes on Hamas targets a few minutes apart today, killing at least one Hamas activist and wounding four, doctors and security officials reported.

A second day of deadly fighting between rival Palestinian forces led to the resignation of a frustrated top security official and left civilians cowering in their houses as masked gunmen roamed the streets.

AS A tenuous ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence in the internal violence that has left 36 people dead in recent days.

Hamas and Fatah gunmen battled each other across the Gaza Strip early today, attacking security compounds, knocking out an electrical transformer and kidnapping several local commanders in some of the most extensive factional fighting in recent weeks.

Gunmen from the rival Hamas and Fatah movements battled each other in Gaza today, continuing an increasingly bloody power struggle over the Palestinian government that left the coastal strip littered with dead over the weekend, while civilians cowered in their homes.

A new wave of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip today killed nine Palestinians, including a two-year-old boy, marring the first anniversary of Hamas’ upset victory in Palestinian elections.

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.