Palestinians, infuriated at a kidnap and killing they blame on far-right Jews, clashed with Israeli police in Jerusalem, while cross-border shelling in the Gaza Strip abated under Egyptian mediation.

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 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.

Israel expanded its fierce air assault on rocket operations in the Gaza Strip today, striking Hamas government and security compounds, smuggling tunnels and electricity sources after an unprecedented rocket attack aimed at the holy city of Jerusalem raised the stakes in its violent confrontation with Palestinian militants.

A series of rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel, prompting Israeli air strikes that killed a Palestinian militant.

An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant have died in a shootout near the border with the Gaza Strip.

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 tanks shelled Gaza City today and ground troops thrust deep into a crowded neighbourhood for the first time.

Egypt and Hamas are close to a deal for a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, where the death toll from the Israeli offensive exceeded 1,000, officials said.

Egypt was preparing to meet representatives of Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority today in an attempt to halt the fighting in Gaza.

Israel bowed to international pressure today to allow hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza.

Israeli warplanes pressing one of Israel’s deadliest assaults ever on Palestinian militants widened their sights today, dropping bombs on smuggling tunnels that are a major weapons pipeline for the Gaza Strip’s Islamic 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.

A Hamas official in Gaza has today confirmed that radical Islamic group Hamas and Israel have agreed a truce which begins on Thursday.

Five Hamas militants, including two commanders involved in rocket attacks, were killed today when an Israeli aircraft blew up a minivan in southern Gaza.

Israel has mobilised police and the military to keep a Hamas demonstration today against its Gaza blockade from turning into a mass border breakout.

At least one person was killed today and six others injured, one critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the southern Israeli town which houses the country’s nuclear reactor, authorities said.

Israeli aircraft launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organisation from the skies over Gaza late yesterday and early today, killing the group’s overall commander and eight other members in three strikes.

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.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today said Israel will press forward with its army operations against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip “without hesitation,” a day after Israeli commandos disguised as Hamas forces captured a leader of the Islamic group.

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.

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

Palestinian security officials said an Israeli tank shell killed five children from the same family travelling in a car in southern Gaza today, but the Israeli military denied any army fire in the area.

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 rounded up more than 30 Hamas leaders in the West Bank including a Cabinet minister, taking its conflict with Hamas over daily Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza to a new level.

An Israeli helicopter fired at least three missiles into the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah today, killing at least four people, Palestinian officials said.

A woman was caught with three crocodiles strapped to her waist at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked “strangely fat”, officials said.

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.

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.

Tens of thousands of Fatah supporters packed Gaza’s main soccer stadium today in a massive show of strength to boost the movement in its increasingly violent struggle against the Islamic militant group Hamas.

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.

Hamas militants today burst into the Rafah border terminal, sparking a gunbattle with guards before taking control of the crossing.

Two Palestinian militants were killed when the Israeli army pushed into southern Gaza before dawn today, the army and Palestinians reported.

Four Hamas militants and one 14-year-old youth were killed today in a pre-dawn clash with the Israeli army in southern Gaza, Palestinian security and hospital officials reported.

Hamas militiamen withdrew from the streets of the Gaza Strip today and returned to their normal posts after the worst day of internal violence since Hamas took control of the Palestinian government in March.

Israeli aircraft struck three times in southern Gaza, killing five militants, after a day of internal Palestinian unrest with public service workers and security forces clamouring to be paid.

THE US has put forward plans to deploy international observers at the main cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza to prevent repeated security closures of Gaza’s economic lifeline.

The US proposes deploying international observers at the main cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza to prevent repeated security closures of Gaza’s economic lifeline, Palestinian and Israeli officials said today.

Israeli troops shot and killed three militants from the Islamic Jihad group near the Israel-Gaza border fence today.

Israeli soldiers, backed by helicopter gunships and tanks, moved into Palestinian-controlled areas near the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing today to conduct house-to-house searches.

Israeli forces have arrested the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, a Hamas leader, at his house, alongside a day of Israeli military operations in the southern Gaza Strip – parts of a month-long offensive against the militant Islamic group.

Israel pressed ahead with its incursion into the southern Gaza Strip today as airstrikes killed five Palestinians, including a mother and her two children, and tanks rolled to the edge of Rafah, officials said.