As hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children returned to school in Gaza on Sunday, Azhar recited a poem eulogizing her father, killed by Israeli shelling in the enclave's recent conflict.

"Daddy, what can I tell you, if I say I love you it's not enough," the nine-year-old, who was beginning the fourth grade, read to a classroom of teary children.

Hamas' former Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya said on Saturday the militant Islamic Palestinian group would not hold any direct talks with Israel. 

There would be "no direct negotiations with the Zionist enemy," Haniya said in a public address in the Gaza Strip, and called on Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to "review" his own strategy of talks with Israel.

The exiled leader of Hamas denied Friday that the Islamist movement was running a "shadow government" in Gaza as charged by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

Khaled Meshaal was speaking in the Tunisian capital days after Abbas threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas, saying it was not allowing the government to operate in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's justice ministry has charged a border policeman with assaulting and injuring a 15-year-old Palestinian-American dual national in July, according to the indictment seen by Agence France-Presse Thursday.

The policeman, whose name remains under a gag order, was indicted at Jerusalem magistrate's court on Wednesday for using "excessive force" that could not be justified against Tariq Abu Khder at a July 3 demonstration in the annexed east Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat.

Israel's army has launched five criminal investigations into incidents involving its forces during the Gaza war, a top legal official said on Wednesday, two weeks after a truce took hold.

The United Nations and international rights groups have condemned Israel for numerous attacks which resulted in heavy civilian casualties, in a conflict that killed more than 2,140 Palestinians. 

Egypt announced Tuesday that it would host a donors' conference on financing the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following the devastating war with Israel, to be held on October 12.

The conference will be held in Cairo, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri said after a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart, Boerge Brende.

The United Nations and the Palestinian government called Tuesday for international donors to provide $550 million in aid to help hundreds of thousands of Gazans affected by a devastating war  with Israel.

The appeal comes two weeks after Israel and Hamas ended 50 days of bloodshed that killed more than 2,100 people, mostly civilians, and a month ahead of a donors' conference in Cairo.

A Palestinian prisoner arrested by Israel in July died Tuesday after what the Israel Prison Authority said was a suicide attempt, a claim denied by the Palestinians.

The Palestinians named the man as Raed Abdel Salam al-Jaabari, 35, and called for an independent probe, describing the circumstances of his death as "mysterious."

Leaving home for the first time in weeks, Abu Jihad was hit by a hail of bullets. His crime? Breaking the house arrest order imposed on him by Hamas.

Abu Jihad is a 27-year-old member of Fatah, the Palestinian nationalist movement headed by President Mahmoud Abbas whose power base is in the West Bank.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday he doubted the current Gaza ceasefire would hold over the long term and that disarming Gaza militants was not feasible any time soon.

After briefing Israeli journalists he was quoted across the local media as saying that he thought the chances of Egypt-mediated talks achieving their goal of a durable Gaza truce were slim.