UN: Gaza humanitarian situation 'dire' 
 
 The UN says people are running out of food and water in Gaza 
 
 UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has expressed extreme concern at the situation in Gaza, describing a ceasefire as "vital". 
 
 She said the conflict meant 44% of Gaza was a no-go area for Palestinians, and residents were running out of food. 
 
 More than 710 Palestinians and 30 Israelis have been killed in the past 16 days of fighting, officials say. 
 
 Israel's ground operations and air strikes have continued, and more Hamas rockets have been fired into Israel. 
 
 Israel launched its military offensive on 8 July with the declared objective of stopping rocket fire from Gaza. 
 
 'Terrible' 
 
 Speaking on Thursday, Valerie Amos said: "We have over 118,000 people now who are sheltering in UN schools... people are running out of food. Water is also a serious concern." 
 
 Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. 
 
 The situation in Gaza was "terrible" and "dire", she added. 
 
 The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says a 1.9 mile (3km) wide strip, encompassing 44% of Gaza, has been designated as a no-go zone by the Israeli military. 
 
 While no-one denied Israel the right to defend itself, there was serious concern for the repercussions for civilians on the ground, said Baroness Amos. 
 
 Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Authority lifted a ban on US airlines flying into Tel Aviv, which came into force on Tuesday after a rocket landed about a mile (1.6km) away from Ben Gurion airport 
 
 However, several European airlines have continued to avoid landing in Tel Aviv. 
 
 Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. 
 
 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he regretted each Palestinian civilian death, but said they were "the responsibility of Hamas". 
 
 He was standing beside UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who said the cycle of violence had been triggered by Hamas "firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns and cities indiscriminately". Mr Hammond also emphasised that the UK was "gravely concerned by the ongoing heavy level of civilian casualties." 
 
 The Israeli leader was deeply critical of a vote by the UN Human Rights Council for an official investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza, describing the decision as "grotesque" and "a travesty of justice". 
 
 'Lift the blockade' 
 
 Meanwhile, Khaled Meshaal, leader of Islamist militant group Hamas, said there could be no ceasefire to ease the conflict in Gaza without an end to Israel's blockade. 
 
 Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. 
 
 "We will not accept any initiative that does not lift the blockade on our people and that does not respect their sacrifices," he said. 
 
 Israel imposed restrictions on the Gaza Strip in 2006 after Hamas abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. The measures were tightened by Israel and Egypt in 2007 after Hamas ousted rival Fatah and forcibly took control in Gaza after winning elections the year before. 
 
 Hamas and Fatah announced a reconciliation deal in April, but the move was condemned by Israel which regards Hamas as a terrorist group. 
 
 Israel's Science Minister Yaakov Peri told Israeli web portal Walla that he did not see a ceasefire in the coming days, as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) needed more time to dismantle Hamas' underground tunnel network. 
 
 There have been hundreds of rocket attacks on Israel, and Israeli air strikes on Gaza, since the Israeli offensive began. 
 
 Palestinian medical sources say the death toll rose to more than 710 on Thursday. 
 
 Israel says 32 soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed since 8 July. 
 
 A Thai worker was also killed when a rocket fired from Gaza landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Wednesday. 
 
 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "outrage and regret" at rockets which were placed inside a UN-run school in Gaza. 
 
 "Those responsible are turning schools into potential military targets, and endangering the lives of innocent children," Mr Ban's spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday. 
 
 Are you in Israel or Gaza? How has the violence affected you? You can email your experiences to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk, using the subject line 'Israel Gaza'. ||||| 1 of 17. A Palestinian mother comforts her child in a hospital a few hundred meters from where medics said Israeli shelling hit a U.N-run school sheltering Palestinian refugees, in Beit Hanoun the northern Gaza Strip July 24, 2014. 
 
 GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Gazan authorities said Israeli forces shelled a shelter at a U.N.-run school on Thursday, killing at least 15 people as the Palestinian death toll in the conflict climbed over 760 and attempts at a truce remained elusive. 
 
 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his horror at the attack on the school at Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza strip. "Many have been killed – including women and children, as well as U.N. staff," he said in a statement. "Circumstances are still unclear. I strongly condemn this act." 
 
 Ban later arrived to Cairo where he was expected to meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been working the telephones to try to broker an elusive truce. 
 
 Kerry's spokesman said the school attack incident "underscores the need to end the violence". 
 
 But there was no sign of progress on securing a ceasefire in his four days in the region. "Gaps remain between the parties," a senior U.S. official said, adding that Kerry wouldn't stay "for an indefinite amount of time." 
 
 The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident. 
 
 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said there was a chance the school had been hit by stray Hamas rockets. "It could be errant fire from the IDF or rockets landing from Gaza terrorists but we still don't know, there's still a question mark," he told Reuters TV. 
 
 A spokesman for the U.N. relief agency said it had tried in vain to arrange an evacuation of civilians from the school with the Israeli army, and noted reports of Hamas rockets falling in the area at the same time. 
 
 Pools of blood lay on the ground and on students' desks in the courtyard of the school near the apparent impact mark of the shell, according to a Reuters photographer at the scene. 
 
 Scores of crying families who had been living in the school ran with their children to a hospital where the victims were being treated a few hundred meters away. Laila Al-Shinbari, a woman who was at the school when it was shelled, told Reuters that families had gathered in the courtyard expecting to be evacuated shortly in a Red Cross convoy. 
 
 "All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads ... Bodies were on the ground, (there was) blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids," she wept. 
 
 Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said that as well as the 15 dead, 200 people had been wounded in the attack. The director of a local hospital said various medical centers around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded. 
 
 UNIMAGINABLE PRICE 
 
 More than 140,000 Palestinians have fled 17 days of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants, many of them seeking shelter in buildings run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Israeli forces are trying to stop militants from Hamas and their allies from firing rockets into its territory. 
 
 "It's clear that civilians are paying an unimaginable price caught between both sides," said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. "We were attempting to arrange a window for evacuation for the civilians with the Israeli army that never came. The consequences were deeply tragic." 
 
 Britain called on Gaza's rulers to accept a truce unconditionally. "Hamas must agree to a humanitarian ceasefire without pre-conditions," Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told a news conference in Cairo as Egypt tries to mediate. 
 
 "Then ... the Palestine Authority (and) Israel would come together for discussions to ensure a lasting and sustainable peace in Gaza so that we do not repeat this cycle of violence." 
 
 Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday his fighters had made gains against Israel and voiced support for a humanitarian truce, but only if Israel eased restrictions on Gaza's 1.8 million people. Hamas wants Egypt to open up its border with Gaza too. 
 
 The Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 762 on Thursday, officials said. Israel has lost at least 32 soldiers in clashes inside Gaza and with Hamas raiders who have slipped under the fortified frontier in tunnels. 
 
 Palestinian rockets and mortar bombs have also killed three civilians in Israel. Such attacks surged last month as Israel cracked down on Hamas in the occupied West Bank, triggering the July 8 air and sea barrage on the Gaza Strip that escalated into an invasion a week ago. 
 
 TRUCE EFFORTS 
 
 With Washington's encouragement, and the involvement of Turkey and Hamas ally Qatar, Egypt has been trying to broker a limited humanitarian ceasefire for the battered enclave. 
 
 One Cairo official said on Wednesday it could take effect by the weekend, in time for the Eid al-Fitr festival next Monday or Tuesday, Islam's biggest annual celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. 
 
 But a U.S. official described any truce by the weekend as unlikely, as did an Israeli security cabinet minister who said the army would need one to two weeks to complete its main mission of razing tunnels used by Hamas for cross-border raids. 
 
 "If the talk is of a humanitarian hiatus for - this is not pleasant to say - removing bodies, all kinds of things that are connected to the civilian population in the short-term, this might be weighed," the minister, Gilad Erdan, told Israel Radio. 
 
 "But I will oppose any ceasefire until it is clear both that the tunnels will be destroyed and what will happen in the post-ceasefire period - how we will guarantee that quiet for the residents of Israel will really be preserved in the long term." 
 
 Israel earlier won a partial reprieve from the economic damage of the war with the lifting of a U.S. ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv. 
 
 Though Israel's Iron Dome rocket interceptor has shot down most of the rockets fired from Gaza, one that came close to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to bar American flights there. 
 
 An ensuing wave of cancellations by foreign airlines sharply reduced traffic at Israel's usually bustling international gateway at the height of the summer tourist season. It was hailed as a victory by Hamas and prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appeal to the Obama administration to intervene. 
 
 The FAA canceled the ban late on Wednesday after reviewing the security situation. The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) said on Thursday it was about to follow suit and lift its own recommendation to avoid flying to Tel Aviv. 
 
 US Airways, a unit of American Airlines Group Inc AAL.O, said it was resuming its non-stop Tel Aviv to Philadelphia service.(Full Story) Germany's Lufthansa LHAG.DE said its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv would continue to Friday. 
 
 Gaza militants continued to fire rockets at Israel on Thursday, sending thousands in the country's south racing to shelters or safe rooms. There were no reported casualties. 
 
 U.N. COUNCIL INQUIRY 
 
 U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Wednesday that there was "a strong possibility" that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza, where medical officials say most of those killed were civilians. 
 
 Pillay also condemned indiscriminate Islamist rocket fire out of Gaza, and the U.N. Human Rights Council said it would launch an international inquiry into alleged violations. 
 
 A furious Netanyahu denounced the inquiry as a "travesty". 
 
 "The HRC should be launching an investigation into Hamas's decision to turn hospitals into military command centers, use schools as weapons depots and place missile batteries next to playgrounds, private homes and mosques," he said. 
 
 Ban, who has also been on a truce-seeking mission, lashed out earlier at Gaza militants, expressing "outrage and regret" that rockets had been found inside a U.N. school for refugees for the second time during the conflict. 
 
 He said storing rockets there "turned schools into potentially military targets, endangering the lives of innocent children", along with U.N. employees and the tens of thousands of sheltering Palestinians. He urged an investigation. 
 
 Gaza has been rocked by regular bouts of violence since Israel unilaterally pulled out of the territory in 2005. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Arshad Mohammed, Yasmine Saleh and Shadia Nasralla in Cairo, Amena Bakr in Doha, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, and Thomas Seythal in Berlin; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Paul Taylor, David Stamp and Robin Pomeroy) ||||| Under pressure from Israeli and American officials, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a temporary ban on flights by American carriers to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport late on Wednesday night. 
 
 The ban, issued midday Tuesday after a rocket fired from Gaza struck within one mile of the airfield, was rescinded 36 hours later, the FAA said in a statement. The move clears the way for U.S.-based airlines to resume flights to Israel’s main international gateway. 
 
 “The FAA has lifted its restrictions on U.S. airline flights into and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport by canceling a Notice to Airmen it renewed earlier today,” the agency said. 
 
 “The cancellation is effective at approximately 11:45 p.m. EDT. Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the Government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation.” 
 
 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied Secretary of State John Kerry Tuesday evening to rescind the ban, as Israeli officials argued the American government was giving Hamas a victory. The airport is a mere 50 miles from Gaza, the scene of intense fighting between Hamas fighters and the Israeli military, who are determined to halt the firing of rockets into Israel. Many of the rockets have been intercepted by the U.S.-backed Iron Dome missile shield. 
 
 Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg boarded an El Al flight late Tuesday to protest the FAA’s decision, declaring the airport safer than American counterparts in an interview with CNN Wednesday from Jerusalem. “The fact that one rocket falls far away from this airport, a mile away, doesn’t mean you should shut down air traffic into a country and paralyze the country,” he said. 
 
 Kerry, who arrived at the airfield Wednesday aboard a U.S. military plane, was apparently not troubled by the security situation. “He and our whole team were very comfortable landing at Ben Gurion Airport,” State Department deputy press secretary Marie Harf told reporters. 
 
 The FAA ban followed days after the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukrainian airspace that the FAA had not believed to be unsafe for flight — an oversight that has drawn scrutiny after the deaths of the aircraft’s 298 passengers and crew. The FAA said it would continue monitoring the situation for any continuing security issues. 
 
 Meanwhile, on Wednesday Texas Sen. Ted Cruz promised to place a procedural hold in the Senate on all Obama administration nominees to the State Department until his questions on the FAA were answered. He accused Obama of using the flight ban to pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire with Hamas to end the weeks-long conflict. 
 
 “The facts suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands,” Cruz said in a statement. 
 
 The State Department’s Harf rejected Cruz’s assertions as “offensive and ridiculous.” Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said Tuesday that the White House would not overrule a security decision by the FAA.
– Amid heavy lobbying from Israel, the FAA lifted its ban on flights to Tel Aviv's airport just before midnight, saying it had reviewed "significant new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation." Israeli officials had urged the US to lift the ban, calling it a victory for Hamas, but American officials say politics didn't play a role in the decision. "We didn't use the FAA to do anything," Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken tells CNN. "The FAA makes independent judgments for safety and security of our airline passengers and for our airlines. They made a judgment, and we're not in the business of second-guessing the FAA or overturning what they do." More: Ted Cruz threatened to block administration nominees in the Senate until his questions about FAA policy were answered, Time reports. He accused Obama of bringing in the flight ban to pressure Israel into accepting a cease-fire. "The facts suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands," he said. After 16 days of fighting that has claimed more than 700 lives, the situation in Gaza is "terrible" and 44% of the territory is now a no-go zone, United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warns. She says people are running out of food and water and a cease-fire is "vital," the BBC reports. Despite the deteriorating situation in Gaza, a truce by the weekend appears unlikely, reports Reuters. Hamas leaders say they won't accept a deal that doesn't ease the economic blockade of Gaza, while Israel, which has now lost at least 32 soldiers, appears to want more time to destroy networks of tunnels under the territory. "I will oppose any cease-fire until it is clear both that the tunnels will be destroyed and what will happen in the post-cease-fire period—how we will guarantee that quiet for the residents of Israel will really be preserved in the long term," a security cabinet minister told Israel Radio. As strikes on Gaza continued, German astronaut Alexander Gerst tweeted a photo of the region from space, in which explosions and smoke were clearly visible. "My saddest photo yet," he said.