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Hamas and Fatah Supporters [/caption]Gaza(GNA)-Israel and Hamas agreed to a UN request to halt hostilities for five hours on humanitarian grounds on Thursday while efforts continue to broker a longer-term truce.
The sides announced the temporary lull in fighting across the Gaza border after an Israeli strike killed four children on a beach in the coastal strip on Wednesday.
An Israeli offensive aimed at halting rocket fire into Israel by Gaza militants had resumed after previous Egyptian-brokered truce efforts collapsed on Tuesday when Hamas continued to fire rockets.
Israel's campaign, which entered its tenth day on Thursday, has killed more than 200 Palestinians, with a Gaza-based human rights group saying more than 80% have been civilians.
Early on Thursday a 70-year-old woman died of injuries sustained during a previous air strike in Khan Younis, Gaza medical services said.
Since 8 July militants have fired more than 1,200 rockets at Israel. They claimed their first Israeli life on Tuesday. The army said early on Thursday that 82 rockets had hit Israel during the course of Wednesday and more than 30 were intercepted by Israel's missile defences.
Hamas had rejected initial Egyptian efforts for a full ceasefire, saying it had not been included in the discussions.
The Israeli army announced it would halt its bombardment of Gaza between 10am and 3pm local time following a UN request for a humanitarian truce. Hamas later followed suit.
"The Palestinian factions agreed to accept the offer from the United Nations for a cooling-down on the ground for five hours starting from 10 in the morning," spokesman Sami Abu Zukhri told Agence France-Presse.
In the small hours of Thursday Israeli air strikes continued to shake Gaza and rockets kept flying into Israel, each side said.
In Cairo a Hamas official met Egyptian leaders and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, arrived to join the diplomatic efforts.
Barack Obama on Wednesday backed Egypt's efforts to broker a ceasefire and offered Washington's full diplomatic support. "Over the next 24 hours we'll continue to stay in close contact with our friends and parties in the region, and we will use all of our diplomatic resources and relationships to support efforts of closing a deal on a ceasefire," said the US president.
Obama said that while he and the world were "heartbroken" by the deaths of civilians in the Gaza Strip, US ally Israel had the "right to defend itself from rocket attacks that terrorise" its population.
In addition to the four children who died on the Gaza seashore, several people were also wounded in an apparent Israeli naval bombardment, medics said.
The first strike scattered terrified children and adults on the beach. A second and third struck as they ran, setting fire to huts on the beach.
The strikes appeared to be the result of shelling by the Israeli navy against an area with small shacks used by fishermen.
Several children ran inside a hotel where at least three had shrapnel injuries.
Several hours after the strikes the Israeli military described the deaths as "tragic" and said it was investigating. "Based on preliminary results the target of this strike was Hamas terrorist operatives," the military said in a statement.
"The reported civilian casualties from this strike are a tragic outcome."
The Israeli military dropped flyers and sent text messages on Wednesday warning 100,000 people in north-eastern Gaza to evacuate their homes ahead of an air campaign targeting "terror sites and operatives" in Zeitun and Shejaiya, two flashpoint districts east of Gaza City. An identical message was sent to Beit Lahiya in the north. Hamas dismissed the warning as a scare tactic, telling residents there was "no need to worry."
Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior member of Abbas's Fatah movement, said a Hamas official was in Cairo to hold talks with Egyptian officials.
Ahmad expressed hope that the talks in Cairo would "crystallise a definite formula for an Egyptian initiative" or clarify its initial plan, which had proposed an end to hostilities from Tuesday.
Abbas himself later arrived in Cairo to join the diplomatic efforts and was slated to travel to Ankara on Thursday in search of regional support for an immediate end to the fighting.
Also in Cairo, the Middle East envoy Tony Blair met the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and the foreign minister, Sameh Shoukri.
Egypt's initiative was designed "to allow all the issues that are at the heart of this problem … to be dealt with in a thorough and proper way", Blair said.
Source : The guardian