Israel has resumed its air strikes on Gaza after its brief ceasefire was met with continuing rocket fire, BBC reported.
Israel had earlier accepted an Egyptian truce proposal for the conflict and stopped operations on Tuesday morning. However, the armed wing of Hamas, which controls Gaza, rejected the initiative as a “surrender”.
Palestinian officials say at least 192 people have been killed by Israeli air strikes launched eight days ago to stop militants firing rockets into Israel.
At least four Israelis have been seriously injured since the violence flared, but none have been killed.
The Israel Defense Forces said about 50 rockets had been fired into Israel during the six hours it had halted air strikes on Tuesday.
At least two new targets in Gaza have been struck by Israeli air strikes.
Under the terms of the Egyptian initiative, the ceasefire should have been followed by a series of meetings in Cairo with high-level delegations from the two sides.
There has been no definitive response to the initiative from Hamas.
Early on Tuesday, a Hamas spokesman in Cairo said it was still considering the offer, but other Hamas sources said its attacks would “increase in ferocity and intensity” unless Israel released prisoners and co-operated with Egypt to lift economic restrictions on Gaza.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said he could not “condemn strongly enough” Hamas’ actions in continuing to fire rockets.
Israel’s security cabinet, convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had approved the truce on Tuesday morning, minutes before the proposed time for it to come into effect – at 09:00 (06:00 GMT) .
“We agreed to the Egyptian proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarisation of the [Gaza] Strip – from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels – through diplomatic means,” Mr Netanyahu said.