Gaza City, Palestinian Territories:
Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians Sunday to commit to a new 72-hour truce in Gaza and enter talks to end fighting that has killed nearly 2,000 people.
The official call came two days after an earlier truce deal collapsed in a firestorm of violence. A Palestinian official at the talks in Cairo said both sides had agreed the new ceasefire, but Israel said the proposal was still under discussion.
"As the events continue to escalate in the Gaza Strip, and given the necessity to protect innocent blood, Egypt calls on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians to commit to a 72-hour ceasefire effective Monday 00:01 Cairo time (21:01 GMT Sunday)," said the Egyptian foreign ministry.
It called on both sides to use the ceasefire to "work to reach a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire."
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP the Islamist movement would not formally comment until an Israeli negotiating team arrived in Cairo.
Asked if Israel had agreed to the Egyptian proposal, an Israeli official said it was being discussed "now".
Israel had bolted truce talks on Friday when Hamas refused to extend an earlier ceasefire and begun firing rockets over the border.
Egypt had earlier insisted that Israel's eight-year blockade on Gaza be lifted.
"This siege should be lifted in accordance with Israel's responsibilities as an occupation force," the foreign ministry said.
More than a month of bloody fighting in and around Gaza has killed 1,920 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.
The UN says just under three quarters of those killed in Gaza were civilians, and around a third of the civilian victims were children.
On the ground, Gazans endured yet another day of fear as the Israeli air force hit 41 targets, killing four people, among them a woman in her 30s and two 17-year-olds.
Militants launched 35 rockets over the border, 23 of which struck southern Israel and six which were shot down, with the rest falling short inside Palestinian territory, the army said.
- Rockets force crossing point closure -In Deir al-Balah, an angry crowd of young men bellowed slogans as they carried the bloodied body of one of the teenagers to its burial side.
The army described the youth as a "prominent terror operative".
"God loves martyrs! We will march on Jerusalem in our millions," chanted mourners.
At the graveside, neighbours passed around pieces of shrapnel as he was laid to rest in a plot where several other freshly-dug graves laid open, as if prepared for further deaths.
After a 72-hour truce ended on Friday, Gaza plunged back into an abyss of violence, with the Israeli military hitting more than 160 targets and killing 18 people, and Palestinian militants launching 110 rockets of which 85 smashed into Israel.
Israel said it had been forced to close its Kerem Shalom crossing used to truck supplies into the southern Gaza Strip after it was struck twice by rocket fire.
"After continuous and intentional rocket fire at the Kerem Shalom crossing this morning and this afternoon, during which trucks carrying flammable materials to the Gaza Strip were almost hit, we took the exceptional decision to close the crossing in order to protect the lives of workers and traders," a defence ministry statement said.
For days, Egyptian efforts to broker an end to more than a month of fighting have led nowhere.
"Israel will not engage in negotiations under fire," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday, warning that Operation Protective Edge would continue until Israel ensured prolonged quiet for its citizens.
In the West Bank, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli troops as he played outside his home in Al-Fawwar refugee camp near the southern city of Hebron, relatives and medics said.
The army said troops had opened fire during a "violent riot" but said it had opened an investigation into the circumstances of the shooting.
Israel's Gaza operation has triggered a series of almost daily protests across the West Bank, during which 16 Palestinians have been killed, the Ramallah-based health ministry said.
- 'Overpower Hamas' -Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure from hardliners to send troops back in to Gaza to topple Hamas, the de facto power in the battered Palestinian enclave.
"There is no doubt that the only thing left to do now is to overpower Hamas, clean out the territory and get out as quickly as possible," said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that if talks to secure a permanent ceasefire led nowhere, going back in to Gaza would be the only option.
"The moment the door closes and negotiations do not bear any fruit and we are faced with continued fire... there will apparently be no choice, and then we will go in," he told public radio.