ISRAEL has put on hold its threatened Gaza ground offensive to give Egyptian-led truce talks a chance as top diplomats flew in to boost efforts to end nearly a week of cross-border violence.
The move came as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged both Israel and Gaza militants to halt their fire "immediately" as he held talks in Cairo aimed at securing a deal between the Jewish state and Hamas, the Palestinian territory's Islamist rulers.
And US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to pay a surprise visit to Cairo and Jerusalem to throw Washington's weight behind the ceasefire efforts, US officials said.
A Palestinian source said she was due in Ramallah on Wednesday.
Following the first night in Gaza without Palestinian fatalities since the campaign began on Wednesday last week, Arab League ministers were due to arrive in the war-torn strip for the latest in a string of top-level solidarity visits.
But the overnight lull was broken during the morning by new Israel air strikes on Gaza City and the north, which killed three and raised the overall death toll to 112, the Hamas-run emergency services said.
Israel's move to postpone any decision on a ground operation was taken during a late-night meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his key ministers, the Forum of Nine.
"A decision was taken that for the time being, there is a temporary hold on a ground incursion to give diplomacy a chance to succeed," a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
"They discussed both the state of the diplomacy and the military operation," he said of talks which are understood to have focused an Egyptian proposal laid out in the Cairo talks between a Hamas team led by Khaled Meshaal and an unnamed Israeli envoy.
Israel is reportedly looking for a 24 to 48-hour truce which would allow the two sides to work out a more permanent arrangement, with Tuesday's ceasefire talks "expected to be decisive", Haaretz newspaper said.
"It's now a 50-50 between a ceasefire and expanding the operation," a senior Israeli official told the paper.
"We would prefer a diplomatic solution but, if we have no choice, we'll go into Gaza. There is no other way."
Hamas is understood to be seeking guarantees Israel will stop its targeted killings, and end the Jewish state's six-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip.
As diplomatic efforts intensified to end the bloodshed before Israel's relentless bombing campaign escalates into a ground invasion, the UN chief urged both sides to hold their fire, warning any continuation would endanger the whole region.
"All sides must halt fire immediately," Ban said in Cairo after holding talks with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, who is expected to lead a top-level delegation of Arab foreign ministers on a visit to Gaza during the afternoon.
"Further escalating the situation will put the entire region at risk," he said, warning an Israeli ground offensive "would only result in further tragedy".
The UN secretary general was to arrive in Jerusalem on Tuesday night for talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres, and meet other top Israeli and Palestinian officials on Wednesday.
Inside Gaza, where 112 people have been killed and 920 injured in the aerial bombardment, many families have fled their homes in northern Gaza, which has taken the brunt of the air strikes, to seek safe haven in the south.
Since the violence erupted on November 14 with an Israeli targeted killing of a top Hamas military commander, militants have fired more than 1000 rockets at the Jewish state, killing three people and injuring dozens.
Of that number, 670 have slammed into southern Israel and another 359 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
The violence comes as Israel heads towards general elections in January, raising the spectre of a broader Israeli military campaign along the lines of its devastating 22-day operation over New Year 2009, when Operation Cast Lead was launched at the end of December 2008.
On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel was ready to "significantly expand" the operation, and all the signs pointed to preparations for a ground operation, with the army sealing all roads around Gaza and some 40,000 reservists reportedly massed along the border.
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