The Palestinian ministry of health announced Saturday the death of 128 people in Rafah, raising the death toll of the 25 days of Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip to 1,680 while more than 9,000 have been wounded.

Despite the bloodshed, Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue fighting.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Saturday an Egyptian truce plan provides a "real chance" to end the Gaza conflict, stressing the need for its speedy implementation.

A Palestinian delegation is expected in Cairo on Saturday to discuss a durable truce to end the fighting, a day after a temporary ceasefire collapsed with Israel and Hamas blaming each other.

Israel declared an end to a three-day Gaza truce only hours after it began Friday, saying it fears one of its soldiers was captured as intensive shelling killed dozens of people in southern Gaza hours into the short-lived truce.

Hamas accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire as Tel Aviv said it was responding to rocket fire.

After bombardment gutted his home in central Gaza, Nidal al-Khaldi says he has nothing left to lose and will support the "resistance" against Israel even if it means more vicious fighting.

"This war will continue!" he declares, standing by the ruins of his house in al-Bureij district during a temporary lull in fighting Friday between Israel and Gaza's militants.

The United States placed the blame for Friday's rapid breakdown in the latest Gaza ceasefire squarely at the door of Hamas, accusing the Palestinian militants of launching a "barbaric" attack.

In recent days Washington had begun to express concern about the rising Palestinian civilian death toll in Israel's assault on Gaza, while still strongly backing its right to defend itself.

Saudi King Abdullah said Friday that world silence over Israeli "war crimes" in the Gaza Strip was "inexcusable" and would only breed more violence in the future.

"We see the blood of our brothers in Palestine being shed in collective massacres that have spared nobody, and in war crimes against humanity," the king said in a speech carried by state news agency SPA.

Latin America's leaders are among the most vehement in condemning Israel's Gaza offensive -- labeling the Jewish state "terrorist", recalling ambassadors, and offering near-unanimous, unwavering support to Palestinians.

"I can't remember another similar situation where (all the countries in the region) have reacted practically as a bloc," said political scientist Reginaldo Nasser, a professor at the Pontifical University in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Israel vowed Thursday to keep its troops in Gaza until they finish destroying a network of cross-border tunnels, despite sharp U.N. and U.S. criticism over the Palestinian death toll that hit 1,435.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not accept any ceasefire that did not allow troops to continue destroying tunnels used by militants to attack Israel.

A premature baby rescued by Gaza doctors from her dead mother's womb last week has died due to complications and power cuts affecting the intensive care unit where she was treated.

The six-day-old baby was born by emergency Caesarean section Friday after doctors at Deir al-Balah hospital in central Gaza managed to save her from the womb of her mother, who died when an Israeli tank shell hit her home.

Hamas's top military commander Mohammed Deif, who has survived assassination attempts and defied the Middle East's most powerful forces, is proving a redoubtable foe for Israel in its latest incursion in Gaza.

As Israel presses its deadly offensive aimed at halting militant rocket fire and eliminating Hamas's tunnel network, Deif has warned there will be no truce in the Palestinian enclave until Israel ends its eight-year blockade.