The Israeli missile tore through the vaulted ceiling and pulverized age-old sandstone. One direct hit destroyed the Omari mosque in Jabaliya and dealt another blow to Gaza's beleaguered heritage.

The site is believed to have housed a mosque since the seventh century and parts of the Omari were said to date back to the 14th century.

Millions in Gaza and southern Israel on Thursday enjoyed a welcome extension to a temporary truce despite a rocky start which saw a flurry of rocket fire and air strikes.

Negotiators in Cairo brokered an 11th-hour extension to an existing truce by another five days to allow for continued negotiations on a long-term ceasefire in a conflict which has killed 1,962 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side since July 8.

Israeli ordnance exploded in Gaza Wednesday, killing five people including a foreign journalist, as bomb experts tried to disable a missile on the last day of a 72-hour truce.

The deadly incident in the northern town of Beit Lahiya took place as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Cairo tried to thrash out a more permanent end to more than a month of violence ahead of a 21:00 GMT deadline.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stated that there are “no red lines” in the “security war” with Israel, reported al-Akhbar newspaper.

He told the daily in excerpts released on Wednesday: “Hamas was not serious in its call on Hizbullah for assistance in the Palestinian Gaza Strip.”

A 72-hour truce between Israel and Hamas teetered on the brink of collapse Wednesday with a rocket hitting the Jewish state just hours before it expired at midnight.

Shortly before the rocket hit, an official told Agence France Presse Israel was willing to extend the lull by another three days as the Palestinians expressed hope they could reach a deal in indirect talks brokered by Egypt.

Israelis living on the frontier with Gaza have fled in their thousands from fighting that turned rural backwaters into combat zones and after weeks away, many are still too scared to go home.

The thud of falling mortar rounds and the scream of incoming rockets have been part of the soundtrack to life on the border for years.

Five Palestinians and an Italian journalist were killed in Gaza Wednesday when Israeli ordnance detonated as experts tried to disable it just hours before the end of a 72-hour truce.

The blast occurred in the northern town of Beit Lahiya as Egyptian mediators scrambled to persuade Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to extend a three-day ceasefire, which expires at midnight (2100 GMT).

Negotiators in Cairo addressed the thorny issue of the Israeli Gaza blockade on Tuesday night, as the second day of a 72-hour truce neared its end.

As Gaza's residents ventured out to try to piece together their battered lives, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a second round of indirect talks aimed at finding a durable end to the five-week confrontation.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Tuesday condemned "war crimes" by Israel in Gaza and urged a meeting of donors on financing reconstruction in the enclave devastated by a month-long war.

In a statement after a ministerial meeting, the second on Gaza in three days, the OIC said that "in the liveliest terms" the meeting condemned Israel, "the occupying force, for war crimes it doesn't stop committing in the Palestinian territories."

Hollywood star George Clooney's fiancee Amal Alamuddin has declined her nomination to join a commission probing Israel's Gaza offensive, the head of the U.N. Human Rights Council said Tuesday.

In a statement, Baudelaire Ndong Ella said that the Lebanese-born British lawyer had cited "prior professional commitments and regrets that the commission will not benefit from her expertise in the field".