GAZA CITY: Dozens of Palestinian families trapped in the clash are scrambling to flee a southern Gaza neighborhood as Israel reported that two more of its soldiers have died in the conflict.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says it's trying to evacuate about 250 people from near Khan Younis, which has been under Israeli tank shelling and drones strikes since early Wednesday.
As the fighting near Khan Younis rages, the Israeli military says two more of its soldiers have been killed, raising the military's death toll to 29. That doesn't include one Israeli soldier whose remains have not yet been found.
The circumstances of the latest military casualties were not immediately clear. The fighting has killed at least 630 Palestinians.
Earlier, a police spokesman said that Israeli aircraft had hit more than 70 targets in Gaza, including the home of the late leader of Hamas' military wing, five mosques and a football stadium.
Ayman Batniji had said that tank shells damaged several houses along the eastern border of the territory early Tuesday and at least 19 fishing boats had been burned by navy shells fired from the Mediterranean.
The UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Cairo in a new attempt to broker a cease-fire.
Prospects are slim because wide gaps remain.
Obama calls for immediate ceasefire as Gaza toll tops 500
Israel soldier unaccounted for in Gaza: army
Israeli pathologists have identified 12 out of 13 soldiers killed in Gaza over the weekend, the army said Tuesday, indicating one body was still unaccounted for inside the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came two days after militants from the Hamas movement claimed they had snatched an Israeli soldier, publishing a name and military identification number, raising fears they had seized his remains.
There were a series of exchanges between the army and Hamas in and around Gaza on Sunday and seven were posted missing after the deadliest.
“The identification process of six of the soldiers killed has been completed and confirmed. The efforts to identify the seventh soldier are ongoing and have yet to be determined,” an army statement said.
It was not immediately clear whether the entire body was missing, or only part of it.
The army refused to confirm or deny claim by Hamas on Sunday that it had captured a soldier, saying it was investigating, although Israel's ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor said the rumours of an abduction were “untrue”.
A spokeswoman flatly denied any possibility that the soldier was alive.
Hamas militants have long sought to abduct soldiers to use as bargaining chips to obtain the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
In 2006, it captured conscript Gilad Shalit and held him for five years before freeing him in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
In the same year, Lebanon's Hezbollah had also seized and killed two soldiers, triggering a devastating war with Israel, and later exchanging their remains in a massive prisoner exchange.
The unidentified soldier killed on Sunday was part of a group of seven troops from the elite Golani unit who died in an attack on an armoured vehicle in Gaza.
Israeli dog tags carry a soldier's name and his army number, and are designed to be broken in two, with half worn around the neck and the other half inserted into his boot to allow for identification in the event of death.
The death of 13 soldiers on Sunday was the highest single day death toll sustained by the Israeli army since the 2006 Lebanon war.
