At least 10 people were killed and many wounded when Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school sheltering Palestinian refugees in northern Gaza, the Gazan Ministry of Health said on Thursday.
The director of a local hospital said various medical centers around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.
"Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it," said Ayman Hamdan, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital. More than 140,000 Palestinians have fled 17 days of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants, many of them seeking refuge in buildings run by the UN's UNWRA agency.
The death toll in Gaza reached 723 on Thursday as Israeli tank fire and pre-dawn assaults killed 31 people in the Hamas-dominated coastal enclave, including an 18-month-old baby and six members of the same family, Palestinian officials said.
In southern Khuzaa and Abassan villages, they said, Israeli shelling left dead and wounded under rubble, while medical crews could not risk approaching. Elsewhere in Gaza, a UN aid agency said three of its teachers were killed in Israeli air strikes.
Palestinians said residents of two southern villages were trapped by days of tank shelling, with medics unable to evacuate the wounded, and UN agencies said more than 140,000 people had been displaced. Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv and said its gunmen carried out a lethal ambush on Israeli soldiers in north Gaza.
Israel has lost at least 32 soldiers in clashes inside Gaza and with Hamas raiders who have slipped across the fortified frontier in tunnels. The military confirmed there had been a new clash on Thursday but did not immediately publish casualties.
A truce between the Jewish state and Hamas Palestinian fighters remained elusive despite intensive mediation bids.
With Washington's encouragement, Egypt has been trying to mediate a limited humanitarian ceasefire. Turkey and Hamas ally Qatar are also involved in diplomatic efforts.
One Cairo official said on Wednesday it could take effect by the weekend, in time for the Eid al-Fitr festival next Monday or Tuesday, Islam's biggest annual celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
But a US official described any truce by the weekend as unlikely, as did an Israeli security cabinet minister who said the army would need one to two weeks to complete its main mission of razing tunnels used by Hamas for cross-border raids.
"If the talk is of a humanitarian hiatus for - this is not pleasant to say - removing bodies, all kinds of things that are connected to the civilian population in the short-term, this might be weighed," the minister, Gilad Erdan, told Israel Radio.
"But I will oppose any ceasefire until it is clear both that the tunnels will be destroyed and what will happen in the post-ceasefire period - how we will guarantee that quiet for the residents of Israel will really be preserved in the long-term."
On a separate note,
Israel won a partial reprieve from the economic pain of its Gaza war on Thursday with the lifting of a US ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv, as fighting pushed the Palestinian death toll over 700.
TURKEY WORKS TO NEGOTIATE GAZA CEASEFIRE
Turkey is working with international partners to negotiate both a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict and access for humanitarian aid, the Turkish foreign minister said on Thursday.
"The US, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt have been working for the last five days to ensure an immediate ceasefire," Ahmet Davutoglu said in an interview with Turkish broadcaster AHaber, adding Turkey was in constant contact with Palestinian leaders.
Ankara has been strongly critical of the civilian casualties caused by Israel's offensive against Gaza, aimed at stopping rockets being fired into Israeli territory by militants loyal to the Islamist group Hamas.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been a fierce critic of Israel's campaign, accusing the Jewish state of terrorizing the region and likening a member of the governing coalition to Hitler, words which drew a sharp rebuke from Washington.
REUTERS
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