The ambulances and firetrucks of Gaza's emergency services gathered on the edge of the Shejaiya district to await news of a humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group.

The word arrived at 1030GMT -- a two-hour truce to allow the retrieval of the dead and wounded, as well as evacuate the terrified people who remained inside the district after a night of non-stop Israeli tank fire.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires over criticism of Cairo's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in neighboring Gaza.

Turkey and Egypt withdrew their ambassadors last year after the military ousted Egyptian Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who had forged closer ties with Turkey's devout premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kuwait called on the international community Sunday to apply pressure on Israel to "stop its aggression" on Gaza following a visit by Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal to the Gulf state.

Kuwait, which holds the rotating presidency of both the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), also announced its backing for an Egyptian truce proposal which was turned down by Hamas.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called on its NATO ally the United States to engage in "self-criticism" after it labeled his comments on Israel's Gaza assault "offensive."

"If America still says 'Israel is using its right to self-defense' it is America that needs to engage in self-criticism," Erdogan told the TGRT news channel.

More than 60 Palestinians were killed Sunday as Israeli forces pounded northern Gaza, sending thousands more fleeing in terror in the deadliest assault on the enclave in five years, as Israel admitted that 13 of its soldiers were killed overnight.

The overall number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Sunday was at least 100, the emergency services spokesman in the territory, Ashraf al-Qudra, said.

France's prime minister on Sunday defended a controversial decision to ban a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Paris that went ahead anyway and descended into violence.

The rally Saturday in a northern district of the French capital was initially peaceful, but scores of men later clashed with riot police, throwing stones and bottles at security forces who responded with tear gas, sending locals and tourists scurrying.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon will meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Monday to discuss Egyptian proposal to end the deadly conflict in Gaza, the foreign ministry said.

More than 400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since July 8 as Israel presses its biggest offensive in the coastal strip in five years.

They walked in their thousands, barefoot and in their pajamas, streaming out of the eastern Gaza district of Shejaiya after a night of non-stop Israeli bombing.

They described hours of terror, as tank shells slammed into homes, with no electricity and no way to escape.

About 5,000 demonstrators against Israel's military strikes in Gaza held a protest Saturday in the Chilean capital, home to a sizable Palestinian community.

The march took demonstrators to the Israeli embassy in Santiago, where some participants glued pictures of children who have died in the attacks to the walls of the building.

Ten-year-old Afnan Shuheiber was playing on a Gaza City rooftop with her cousins when she became one of at least 73 children killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip.

The spiraling number of children killed in the latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza has raised international concern.