Live blog: Gaza under attack

Palestinian and Israeli negotiators on Friday voiced readiness to return to Cairo to resume indirect talks aimed at reaching a long-term ceasefire if they are invited to do so by Egyptian mediators.

"The Palestinian delegation doesn't mind returning to Cairo to resume indirect talks with the aim of realizing the demands of the Palestinian resistance – if an invitation is officially extended by Egyptian mediators," Khaled al-Batsh, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, told Anadolu Agency.

Al-Batsh, a member of the Islamic Jihad group, said members of the Palestinian delegation had agreed to return to Cairo if Egypt invited them for another round of talks.

The Israeli army on Friday sealed off the Palestinian town of Silwad near Ramallah following fierce clashes with Palestinian protesters, an Anadolu Agency correspondent has reported.

Israeli troops barricaded the town's three entrances with sandbags following violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters.

Five Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets, while dozens of others suffered temporary asphyxiation after inhaling teargas during fierce clashes in the town between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters who had taken to the streets to show solidarity with their counterparts in the embattled Gaza Strip.

Protesters, for their part, hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at heavily-armed Israeli troops.

Other parts of the occupied territory – including Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah – saw similar protests in support of Gaza.

Egypt, who sponsored indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, must hold Israel "responsible for its crimes" in the Gaza Strip, Deputy Chief of Hamas' Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh said yesterday.

In a statement, Haniyeh asked that "our brethren in Egypt hold the enemy responsible for its crimes against civilians, for our people will not accept anything less than ceasing the aggression and lifting the siege."

Cairo sponsored indirect negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian delegations in order to reach an agreement for a lasting truce.

Haniyeh said: "We advise all of those who endeavour to attain a ceasefire to attest to the occupation's treachery and tendency to break promises and the killing of women, children and the extermination of entire families."

According to Ynet, security sources claimed on Friday that the mortar that earlier killed a 4-year-old boy in the Sdot Negev regional council had been fired by militants from within an UNRWA school in northern Gaza.

Iran plans to send aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip after Egypt said it would allow the shipment to enter the Palestinian territory, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday.

The official IRNA news agency said Cairo had agreed to transfer humanitarian aid bound for the coastal enclave, citing a foreign ministry source in Tehran.

The source said a first Iranian Red Crescent shipment of 100 tonnes of medicine and food would be flown "soon" to Cairo.

"The package weighs 100 tonnes and consists of food and medication," IRNA quoted the source as saying.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened a harsh retaliation for rocket fire that killed an Israeli child in the Sdot Negev regional council on Friday.

"Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack," Netanyahu's spokesman Ofir Gendelman cited the premier as saying on his Twitter account, adding that the Israeli army and Shin Bet internal security service would "intensify ops against Hamas until the goal of Protective Edge is achieved".

The Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian resistance faction Hamas, has said that it fired a home-made rocket at Israel's Ben Gurion airport.

In a statement, the Brigades said its fighters had fired an M75 rocket at the airport, which is located some 15km southeast of Tel Aviv.

On Wednesday, a Hamas spokesman warned international airline carriers to halt all flights to the airport as of Thursday to avoid being struck by incoming rockets.

Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians in the centre of the Gaza Strip on Friday, two in Deir al-Balah and three in Nusseirat, the local emergency services said.

One strike in Nusseirat hit a house, killing two men aged 24 and 22, while in Deir al-Balah it landed in open farmland, Ashraf al-Qudra.

A drone strike later targeted a 45-year-old man in Nusseirat who died of his injuries in hospital shortly afterwards, Qudra's office said.

The identities of those killed in Deir al-Balah were not immediately clear, reported AFP.

At least 38 Palestinians died on Thursday as Israeli planes bombarded Gaza for the second day in a row after a temporary ceasefire fell apart, Ma'an News reported. 

Israel started construction on hundreds of housing units in the West Bank and Jerusalem since its assault on the Gaza Strip began in early July, Middle East Monitor reporteed Palestinian experts on settlement issues in the West Bank to have said.

The Israeli army has said that a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a synagogue in southern Israel on Friday afternoon, slightly injuring two people.

"A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck and damaged a Jewish synagogue in the southern city of Ashdod. Two people inside the synagogue were slightly injured and taken to hospital," an Israeli army official said.