World pushes truce efforts as Gaza toll hits 548

World efforts to broker a ceasefire in war-torn Gaza
gathered pace July 21 as Israel pressed a blistering 14-day assault on
the enclave, pushing the Palestinian death toll to 548.

As Washington and the United Nations demanded an "immediate
ceasefire" in the battered Palestinian enclave, there was no let up in
the Israeli offensive with another 31 Gazans killed in a series of
strikes.

And Israel said troops killed 10 Hamas militants after they sneaked
over the border through a network of tunnels that the army has been
trying to destroy in an intensive four-day ground operation.

With growing concern over the number of civilian deaths, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo for top-level talks on ending the hostilities, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also expected to fly in late July 21.

Following the deadliest day in Gaza since 2009, when at least 140
Palestinians were killed on July 20, medics pulled another 68 bodies from the rubble early July 21, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra
said. 31 others were killed in a series of fresh strikes across the Gaza Strip.

In the latest bloodshed, tank-shelling on a hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed four people, and a family of nine was killed in
the southern city of Rafah, seven of them children, Qudra said.

As the diplomatic efforts gathered steam, hundreds of people could be seen flooding out of the northern town of Beit Hanun, a day after many
thousands fled an intensive Israeli bombardment of the eastern Gaza City district of Shejaiya.

On July 20, at least 72 people were killed in Shejaiya during a
punishing Israeli operation which reduced much of the district to rubble and left charred bodies lying in the...