Four killed in Gaza as Egypt raises new truce proposal

GAZA CITY: Violence reverberated across Gaza on Monday with four Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes as Egypt proposed a new ceasefire that would open key crossings into the blockaded territory.

Since an earlier ceasefire arrangement collapsed on August 19, the death toll in Gaza has risen steadily with 106 Palestinians killed in more than 350 Israeli air strikes across the territory. Over the same period, more than 650 rockets have struck Israeli territory, one of which killed a four-year-old boy over the weekend, army figures show.

Around 100 rockets were shot down. Since midnight, Israeli air strikes on northern Gaza have killed four Palestinians, including two women and a three-year-old boy, medics said, raising the Palestinian death toll to 2,124 in seven weeks of violence. On the Israeli side, 68 people have been killed, four of them civilians and the rest soldiers.

Another 38 rockets fired from Gaza struck the Israeli south on Sunday, while another was shot down, army statistics showed.

Following a weekend of heavy fire on the south, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel would not be worn down by persistent rocket fire and that the operation would not end until quiet was restored.

"Our enemies... will not succeed in wearing us down. Against their attrition, they will be struck very hard," he said on Sunday, warning that Israel would hit any place from which militants were firing, including homes.

His remarks came as the air force stepped up its campaign against rocket fire, firing missiles which levelled a 12-storey residential block. But by early Monday, there was increasing chatter about a possible new ceasefire agreement which would see the delegations return to Cairo to resume talks on an Egyptian proposal to broker a more permanent end to the violence.