Israel signalled it was winding up the 25-day-old Gaza war unilaterally, saying on Saturday it would not attend Egyptian-hosted negotiations for a new truce and giving Palestinians who had fled fighting in one northern town the all-clear to return.

But shelling exchanges continued, with Palestinian officials saying Gaza's mostly civilian death toll rose to 1,665 and Israel saying its Iron Dome interceptor shot down rockets launched at the cities of Tel Aviv and Beersheba. Several ceasefires between Israel and the Gaza Strip's dominant Islamist Hamas faction had failed to take hold or quickly collapsed, most recently on Friday after two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third went missing in an ambush. Israel accused Hamas of seizing lieutenant Hadar Goldin and the United States blamed the group for a "barbaric" breach of the truce. The United Nations was more guarded in its censure of Hamas but urged Goldin's immediate release. Seeking to shift responsibility, Hamas said it believed its gunmen had struck before Friday's ceasefire began and that if they captured Goldin, he probably died with his captors in heavy Israeli barrages that followed. A Palestinian delegation was to fly to Cairo for new truce negotiations, which would include Hamas's demand that Egypt ease movement across its border with blockaded Gaza. But Israel said it would not send its own envoys as scheduled on Saturday. "Hamas is hoodwinking the international community again and again," an Israeli official said. "It is not interested in an accommodation (with Israel)." Israel launched a Gaza air and naval offensive on July 8 following a surge of cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas, later escalating into ground incursions centred along the infiltration tunnel-riddled eastern frontier of the enclave but often pushing into urban areas.