Israel breached a nascent three-day Gaza ceasefire yesterday almost as soon as it began, killing more than 50 Palestinians in renewed shelling.

Little had been expected of a UN/US-prompted ceasefire based on the premise that Israeli troops could continue activities against cross-border tunnels — and as it turned out, little was achieved.

Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers had apparently started clearing a tunnel when they confronted Palestinian fighters.

In the resulting firefight two Israeli soldiers were killed and IDF Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was captured.

The Israeli response was swift and vicious.

Israeli tanks crossed into Rafah and commenced a bombardment which demolished dozens of houses, wiping out an entire village and killing more than 50 people, while wounding 220 others.

The 72-hour break announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon was the most ambitious attempt so far to end more than three weeks of fighting, and followed mounting international alarm over the soaring Palestinian civilian death toll.

The ceasefire, which began at 8am, had prompted Palestinian families to trek back to battle-devastated neighbourhoods where their homes had been reduced to rubble — but renewed tank shelling soon drove them out again. 

The ceasefire was to have been followed by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo.

Egyptian officials said the invitation to negotiators still stood, but some Palestinian representatives had asked for a postponement to allow a new truce to be reached.

US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns is due to arrive in Cairo today and acting US envoy for Middle East peace Frank Lowenstein and another US official, Jonathan Schwartz arrived yesterday.

The Palestinian delegation would be comprised of Hamas, Fatah, the Islamic Jihad militant group and a number of smaller factions, Palestinian officials said. 

But US officials immediately retorted that Israel and the US would not sit at the table with Hamas.

Gaza officials said yesterday that at least 1,509 Palestinians, mostly civilians, had been killed and 7,000 wounded including yesterday’s attacks. 

Sixty-three Israeli soldiers have been killed and more than 400 hurt.