Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki on Tuesday said he was optimistic the latest ceasefire in Gaza will hold, even as Palestinians renewed efforts to haul Israelis before the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

A 72-hour truce took hold in the shattered enclave earlier on Tuesday after a Cairo-brokered deal was accepted by both Hamas and Israel, ending 29 days of heavy fighting which has claimed more than 1,800 lives.

Khayri Hasan al-Masri fled his home in Beit Hanun with his wife and three children nearly three weeks ago when Israel announced the launch of its July 17 ground offensive.

They left a tidy white house, with its grassy courtyard, a palm tree and a lemon tree.

Three remaining members of a Palestinian delegation negotiating a longer-term truce in Gaza were on their way to Cairo Tuesday after entering Egypt through the Rafah crossing, state media reported.

Israel and Hamas halted their fighting in Gaza from 0500 GMT Tuesday after a three-day temporary truce brokered by Cairo went into effect. Israel also withdrew its troops from the coastal enclave.

Waving her son goodbye as he boarded a bus carrying his unit away from Israel's border with Gaza, Orly Doron was relieved but apprehensive about the lull in fighting Tuesday.

Doron comes from Kfar Aza kibbutz close to Gaza, where her son has been involved in the intense fighting that has left areas of the Palestinian enclave in ruins.

Twenty-nine days of fighting between Israel and Hamas broke out on July 8 and expanded with an Israeli ground assault nine days later. A truce came into effect Tuesday.

Here is a summary of the chief statistics as the 72-hour ceasefire began:

A Foreign Office minister who was the first Muslim to sit in the British cabinet dramatically resigned on Tuesday over what she called the government's "morally indefensible" policy on Gaza.

The surprise decision by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who also had responsibility for faith and communities, heaped pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to take a tougher line against Israel over its actions in Gaza.

A 72-hour truce took hold in Gaza on Tuesday as Israel withdrew troops following four weeks of bitter fighting and Palestinians ventured out to find scenes of destruction.

The guns fell silent after 29 days of fighting, bringing relief to millions as both sides counted the cost from a conflict that killed at least 1,867 Palestinians and 67 people in Israel.

Britain is reviewing licenses to sell arms and military goods to Israel in the light of ongoing operations in Gaza, Prime Minister David Cameron's office said Monday.

Britain's government has approved licenses for the sale of military goods to Israel worth at least £42 million ($71 million, 53 million euros) since 2010, according to government figures obtained by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

Israel and the Palestinians have agreed a new 72-hour Gaza ceasefire that would start at 0500 GMT Tuesday, said a senior official in Egypt, which is hosting truce talks.

"Egypt's contacts with relevant parties have achieved a commitment for a 72-hour truce in Gaza starting from 0500 GMT tomorrow morning, and an agreement for the rest of the relevant delegations to come to Cairo to conduct further negotiations," the official told Agence France-Presse.

The British government said on Monday it was "urgently" investigating media reports that a British aid worker has been killed in Gaza.

"We are aware of the reports of the death of a British national in Rafah and are urgently looking into them," a spokesman for the Foreign Office said.