Israel launched a ground operation in Gaza late Thursday on the 10th day of an offensive to stamp out rocket attacks from the Palestinian enclave, the Israeli army said, as the death toll in Gaza rose to at least 240 and efforts to reach an Egypt-mediated ceasefire collapsed.

"Following 10 days of Hamas attacks by land, air and sea, and after repeated rejections of offers to deescalate the situation, the Israel Defense Forces (army) has initiated a ground operation within the Gaza Strip," it said in a statement.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday mulled holding a donors conference to rebuild Gaza, the Egyptian presidency said.

Sisi and Abbas, who discussed ways to end the Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave, also agreed that Israeli crossings to the besieged Gaza be opened to facilitate movement of people and goods.

After proposing a stillborn truce denying Hamas any gains from its conflict with Israel, Egypt has had to negotiate with the Palestinian militants to halt the war on its doorstep, analysts said.

The initial truce was to have taken effect on Tuesday, apparently coordinated with Israel while bypassing Hamas.

Local Lebanese television networks decided on Thursday to air a unified newscast in solidarity with the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, a step that was endorsed by Information Minister Ramzi Jreij.

The initiative was launched by As Safir newspaper's Editor in Chief Talal Salman in coordination with prominent Lebanese and Palestinian figures, and it is scheduled to take place on Monday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday launched his most bitter attack yet against Israel over its air campaign in the Gaza Strip, accusing Israel of seeking a "systematic genocide" of the Palestinians.

Erdogan, a pious Muslim who sees himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, has in the last days intensified his rhetoric against Israel as he presents himself as a leader of the entire Islamic world ahead of August 10 elections in Turkey.

After days of empty streets and shuttered shops, Gaza City sprang back to life on Thursday during a fragile U.N.-negotiated humanitarian truce between Hamas and Israel to halt cross-border fire.

The Islamist movement and Israel began observing the five-hour ceasefire at 0700 GMT, after 10 days of violence that has killed at least 230 Palestinians and one Israeli.

France braced Wednesday for more protests against Israel's deadly bombing of Gaza just days after demonstrators in Paris tried to storm two synagogues to the concern of Muslim and Jewish community leaders.

Some 50 political parties, unions and activist groups have called for rallies across France on Wednesday evening to seek an "immediate end" to the Israeli offensive that has left 208 dead and to demand sanctions against the Jewish state.

At Al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital near Gaza City, a handful of doctors and nurses hover over paralyzed patients, wondering how to protect them from more air strikes as threatened by Israel.

The patients lie mostly inert in beds lined up in the hospital's reception, where staff moved them after an Israeli rocket crashed into the fourth floor.

France said Wednesday the European Union could set up observer missions at border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel to try to encourage a lasting truce between the two sides.

The proposal by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius came as an Israeli air campaign on Gaza that has killed 208 people entered its ninth day after a failed ceasefire effort.

Israel urged 100,000 Gazans to flee their homes on Wednesday, but the warning was largely ignored despite an intensification of the military's nine-day campaign after Hamas snubbed a ceasefire effort.

As the punishing Israeli operation resumed pace, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas was to travel to Egypt and Turkey in search of regional support for an immediate end to the fighting after an attempt at an Egyptian-brokered truce collapsed.