Live blog: Gaza under attack

129 organizations and distinguished individuals send open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 5 August. 

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike hits Gaza city on 8 August. 

The White House has urged Israel and the Palestinians to resume talks and do what they can to protect civilians, reported Reuters.

"The United States is very concerned about today's developments in Gaza," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

"We condemn the renewed rocket fire and we are concerned about the safety and security of civilians on both sides of that conflict," he said. 

Search and rescue team tries to rescue people under a building, demolished in an Israeli attack.

In this part of the world, humour is one of our ways of dealing with situations that are so terribly sad. From the start of this conflict, more than 1,800 Palestinians and 64 Israeli soldiers as well as three civilians in Israel have been killed. Each and every one of these lives lost – children, babies, elderly people, women, men, in Gaza and Israel alike – is tragic.

Public discourse in Israel seeks relativity: If you must express sadness over people dying in Gaza, at least don’t be as sad as when it’s an Israeli that is killed. And make sure to note it’s Hamas’s fault, too. Plain simple sadness means that there must be something wrong with you: you must care about them more that about your own people. Traitor.

Seven Palestinians were injured on Friday afternoon when Israeli forces opened fire on demonstrators in the village of Safa near Ramallah protesting on the anniversary of the killing of a local youth the week before, Maan News Agency reported.

The large rally in the central West Bank village began from the local mosque and moved toward the separation wall as it passes through the village, but marchers were stopped before reaching the area when Israeli soldiers used live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas canisters against them.

A Palestinian has been killed by Israeli gunfire near Ramallah, medical source reported to the Anadolu Agency.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his "deep disappointment" over the failure to extend this week's 72-hour cease-fire, saying "the extension of the cease-fire is absolutely essential for talks to progress."

Ban additionally condemned the renewed rocket fire towards Israel, saying "more suffering and death of civilians caught up in this conflict is intolerable" while firmly calling on both parties "not to resort to further military action that can only exacerbate the already appalling humanitarian [situation] in Gaza."

As violence resumes in Gaza, the Israelis have withdrawn their delegates from the Cairo ceasefire talks saying they won't negotiate "under fire."

Though these are not the first time ceasefire talks have been held in Cairo, the circumstances are very different from previous occasions.

Ramzy Baroud, managing editor of Middle East Eye, discusses the ceasefire talks between Palestinian and Israeli delegates in Cairo, the political influence of Egypt and how the circumstances have changed for Hamas.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement to the media: "We have not yet received a document with the Israeli answer to our demands." 

"Just yesterday, we received a memorandum of understanding from the Egyptian side, and this document did not respond to any of our requests - the airport, the sea port, the buffer zone, the expansion of the fishing area, etc."

"There was also no explicit mention of the lifting of the siege....We think Israel is dragging its feet. They did not respond to our demands and has not done a thing to show that there is a reason to extend the cease-fire. Now all options are open....However, the door to continued conversations is not closed. The decision to comply with our requirements is in Israeli hands." 

Palestinian sources say 5 Gazans have been killed, and 31 wounded, in the Strip since Friday morning.

Fifty-one rockets have been fired at Israel since the expiry of a 72-hour truce between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, a spokesman for the Israeli military said.

Thirty-two rockets from Gaza have fallen in open areas in Israel, while 12 have landed prematurely within the Gaza Strip, Avichay Adraee said on Twitter, without stating the fate of the remaining rockets.

The Israeli army had said earlier that the Iron-Dome anti-missile defense system has intercepted a number of rockets and that one rocket fell on a house in the southern Sderot town.