It will be the first top level meeting of the diplomatic Quartet in six months. 
 
 Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will attend the meeting at UN headquarters in New York. 
 
 EU foreign affairs representative Baroness Ashton will take part by videoconference, diplomats said. 
 
 Mrs Clinton, Mr Lavrov and Mr Ban will then join a UN Security Council debate on the Arab Spring. 
 
 A wounded Palestinian boy is wheeled into a hospital in Gaza City after an Israeli air strike (REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot) 
 
 Israel's air force pounded Gaza overnight with a series of raids which killed three people, raising the death toll to 21 in a wave of tit-for-tat violence that began with Israel's killing of a senior militant on Friday. 
 
 The fresh attacks prompted China calling on Israel toh alt its raids. 
 
 "China is concerned about the escalation of the situation in Gaza," a foreign ministry spokesman said. 
 
 "We call upon the Israeli side to stop air raids against Gaza. We hope parties concerned can stop firing immediately in order to avoid casualties of innocent civilians." 
 
 Wounded Palestinian children receive medical atttention at a hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip following an Israeli air raid (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 Israel said Palestinian militants had fired a total of 180 rockets from the impoverished territory since the violence erupted, leaving four Israelis wounded. 
 
 On Sunday, Israel called on the UN Security Council to take action over the rocket assault. 
 
 It criticised the low-key international response to attacks from Gaza and warned in a letter signed by Israeli deputy UN Ambassador Haim Waxman that it would take "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said the Security Council must "act with urgency to address this crisis" accusing Israel of staging an "escalation of deadly violence and terror". 
 
 He said women and children were among "dozens" of wounded and the dead also included a farmer killed while working in his field. 
 
 Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since September 2010 and the decades-old conflict has become overshadowed by the uprising in neighbouring Syria. Quartet efforts to revive the talks have come to nothing. 
 
 Angered by Israel's settlement construction in the occupied territories, the Palestinian leadership has stepped up efforts to bring the international spotlight back on their demands for an independent state. 
 
 At the UN General Assembly last September, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, made a high profile application for full Palestinian membership of the global body. But the United States has threatened to veto any recommendation for membership made by the UN Security Council. 
 
 The United States and Israel say only direct talks can produce an accord that will set up a new state. 
 
 The same day as Abbas made his bid at the UN, the Quartet launched a new initiative to press the two sides back into talks, setting a timetable for Palestinians and Israelis to make proposals on the borders and security for a new Palestinian state. 
 
 Preliminary contacts in Jordan in January failed to get agreement on new direct talks however. 
 
 The Palestinians last year won membership of UNESCO and say they could seek seats with other international agencies. But other measures to increase international recognition and draw attention to the conflict have failed. 
 
 Using its powers as a permanent member of the Security Council, the United States last year vetoed a resolution condemning Israeli settlements which the UN and all major powers consider illegal. 
 
 The Palestinians last month invited the Security Council to visit the Palestinian territories. The United States has led resistance to that idea. Many observers say there is no prospect for a breakthrough until after the US presidential election in November. 
 
 The Quartet held its last top-level meeting at the UN General Assembly in September. 
 
 Source: AFP ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability" 
 
 International efforts to finalise a ceasefire are being stepped up after a night of renewed Israeli air strikes in Gaza and sporadic Hamas rocket attacks. 
 
 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting the West Bank and, later, Cairo after talks with Israeli leaders. 
 
 Palestinian sources had suggested a truce would be announced on Tuesday, but Israel said no deal was struck. 
 
 Some 136 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed since the flare-up began eight days ago, officials say. 
 
 On Tuesday alone, the conflict claimed the lives of at least 20 Palestinians and two Israelis. 
 
 Mrs Clinton has arrived in Ramallah on the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also visiting leaders in the region to try to cement a ceasefire. 
 
 In Cairo, officials from Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that has governed Gaza since 2007, had suggested a truce would come into effect at midnight on Tuesday, but Israel later said it had not agreed to a text. 
 
 Israel's demands include no hostile fire of any kind from Gaza and international efforts to prevent Hamas from re-arming, while Hamas is demanding an end to the blockade on Gaza and targeted killings by Israel. 
 
 Before me two men are salvaging burnt & damaged copies of the Quran from the rubble of the compound Paul Danahar (@pdanahar) on Twitter 
 
 An Israeli official told Israel Radio the ceasefire had not been agreed because of "a last-minute delay in the understandings between Hamas and Israel". 
 
 Offices struck 
 
 In the early hours of Wednesday, BBC correspondents in Gaza reported hearing loud explosions that were followed by a widespread power cut. 
 
 Israeli missiles struck the main complex of the Hamas-run government in the centre of Gaza City. 
 
 The BBC's Paul Danahar in Gaza said the huge compound had been laid to waste and was little more than dust and rubble. 
 
 The Israeli military later tweeted it had "surgically targeted a Hamas intelligence operations centre" on the seventh floor of a media building. 
 
 Israel's military, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said it had attacked more than 100 "terror sites" in Gaza overnight "of which approximately 50 were underground rocket launchers". 
 
 The health ministry in Gaza said 15 more people had been injured overnight. 
 
 The BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza says the streets were again empty on Wednesday morning, as people tried to protect themselves at home while waiting for something positive to come from talks in Cairo. 
 
 Israel says more than 800 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel over the past week, 162 in the past day alone. 
 
 Many of the rockets have been intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system. 
 
 Overnight, two rockets were knocked down by Iron Dome and others landed on open ground, Israel Radio said. By morning, air raid sirens sounded in many parts of southern Israel, local media reported. 
 
 'Sustainable outcome' 
 
 Hamas officials in Cairo accused Israel of failing to respond to ceasefire proposals. 
 
 Israeli spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC: "I have no doubt that Hamas would be more than happy to have a temporary respite - a time out... so they could rest and re-arm and we would have missiles on Israel next week or next month. We are not interested in that." 
 
 Image caption Smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip have been targeted by Israel 
 
 US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Mrs Clinton - who flew into Jerusalem late on Tuesday - had held two hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. 
 
 "They discussed efforts to de-escalate the situation and bring about a sustainable outcome that protects Israel's security and improves the lives of civilians in Gaza," Ms Nuland said. 
 
 Speaking just before the talks, Mr Netanyahu said Israel wanted a diplomatic solution but that he was ready to take "whatever action" was necessary. 
 
 "If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem by diplomatic means, we prefer that. But if not, then I am sure you will understand that Israel will have to take whatever actions are necessary to defend its people," he said. 
 
 Israel's Haaretz newspaper said there were divided views in the government over the truce proposals, with Defence Minister Ehud Barak in favour of accepting an Egyptian draft, while Mr Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were opposed. 
 
 The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says both sides want more out of this than just a ceasefire. The Palestinians want a lifting of the blockade of Gaza, permanently reopening the borders. He says the hope would be that this will defuse tension and reduce pressure on Hamas. 
 
 The Israelis want an end to attacks, our correspondent says, but specifically want to prevent Hamas restocking its missiles. He says the key to that is how the Egyptians can seal the border; but this is politically sensitive among the Egyptian people and also physically difficult, as the military has a lot of trouble controlling militants in Sinai. 
 
 Israel launched its current offensive a week ago with the killing of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari. The Israeli government says his assassination, and the subsequent offensive, aims to end rocket fire from Gaza. 
 
 Israel has troops massed along the Gaza border but says it is holding off on a possible ground invasion as talks continue. ||||| Hillary Clinton is en route to the Middle East to join efforts to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, in a move that suggests a breakthrough is close. 
 
 The US secretary of state, who had been accompanying Obama on his visit to south-east Asia, left Cambodia on Tuesday for talks in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, where she will meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian officials and Egyptian leaders. 
 
 Gaza City was relatively quiet overnight, but the Israeli military said it had struck 100 targets over the coastal strip, including the Gaza headquarters of the National Islamic Bank. 
 
 Five rockets were fired from Gaza during the course of the night, following a pattern of reduced missile launches for the past three nights. Rocket fire resumed on Tuesday morning. 
 
 A possible ground invasion by Israeli troops is on hold while talks in Cairo continue. However, there was evidence of the military buildup along the border with a heavy presence of reservist soldiers. 
 
 In Cairo, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned that further escalation in the conflict could endanger the region. "This must stop, immediate steps are needed to avoid further escalation, including a ground operation," he said. He is to visit Jerusalem on Tuesday for talks with Netanyahu before heading to Ramallah to see the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. 
 
 Netanyahu met members of his security cabinet overnight. A senior Israeli official told Reuters after the meeting: "Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved." 
 
 A White House spokesman said Clinton would make clear an escalation of the conflict would be in nobody's interest. The US, Britain and other western governments have urged Israel not to mount an assault similar to Operation Cast Lead, in which 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza were killed four years ago. 
 
 By Tuesday, civilians accounted for 54 of the 113 Palestinians killed since the operation began. Some 840 people have been wounded, including 225 children, Gaza health officials said. Three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire. 
 
 Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, who was in Cairo for talks on Monday, told reporters Israel must be the first to halt military operations since it had begun them last week by assassinating the movement's military chief, Ahmed al-Jaabari. "A ground invasion will not be a walk in the park," Meshal warned. "We don't have the same military and deterrence capabilities [as Israel] but we have deterred them with our will. Our enemy is drowning in the blood of children." 
 
 Officials in Jerusalem flatly denied Meshal's claim that Israel was seeking a ceasefire. It was Hamas, one official said, that was looking for a way to "climb down" after more than 400 air strikes in Gaza had significantly eroded the Palestinians' ability to launch missiles at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. 
 
 But diplomats in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were hopeful a deal could be forged. "The fact that the talks are still going on is a good sign," said one. "And the fact that Israel hasn't yet gone in on the ground is a good sign." 
 
 The Cairo truce talks ran into trouble on Sunday after news that 10 members of one family had been killed in Gaza in an air strike apparently aimed at killing a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader. 
 
 British officials monitoring the crisis said the key was to de-escalate, secure a durable ceasefire, and then return to the key questions of promoting reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation and re-invigorating a moribund peace process. 
 
 The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said in Brussels: "I am pleased that Israel has held back from a ground invasion while such negotiations go on, and that the rate of rocket attacks on Israel has fallen, for whatever reason, over the last 24 hours. These are positive developments, but of course it remains a desperately serious and difficult situation." 
 
 Palestinian sources said that Abbas had responded angrily on Monday to Tony Blair, the Middle East Quartet's (the UN, US, EU and Russia) envoy, in a meeting in Ramallah. Blair is trying to persuade Abbas to refrain from seeking observer status at the UN – a move opposed by the US and Israel. Abbas reportedly told him to leave if he was not there to talk about the crisis in Gaza. 
 
 Israeli sources made clear that a ceasefire deal would have to mean an end to all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, including small arms fire at troops near the border. Hamas fighters must also be stopped from crossing into Sinai to mount attacks against Israel from Egyptian territory. Hamas must not be allowed to rearm. Any ceasefire must not be a simple "time out" for Hamas but provide an extended period of quiet for southern Israel. 
 
 Support for Operation Defensive Pillar remains solid in Israel. According to an opinion poll in the Haaretz newspaper, 30% of the Israeli public support a ground invasion despite the risk of high casualties. Overall the operation has the backing of around 84% of the public, with 12% opposed. 
 
 But in one sign of dissent, 100 writers, intellectuals and artists on Monday issued a petition calling for a long-term ceasefire, and more significantly for talks with Hamas, which has long been a political taboo. "We must speak out because the people of southern Israel, like the people of Gaza, deserve to be able to look up at the sky in hope and not in fear," wrote the author Amos Oz, playwright Yehoshua Sobol and others. 
 
 Additional reporting by Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo
– With 23 Palestinians now dead in the latest Gaza conflict, the Middle East Quartet is meeting for the first time in six months in New York. Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and EU diplomat Baroness Ashton will discuss the growing violence after Israeli air raids killed five more people, including three civilians and a pair of militants. Israel yesterday sought UN Security Council action over rocket attacks from Gaza. China has also weighed in on the situation, calling on Israel to halt its air raids, the Telegraph notes. Iran has labeled the raids "war crimes," urging international condemnation against the "abhorrent violation of human rights." Among the reported dead today was a 15-year-old boy, CNN reports, though Israel said it did not bomb the area where he was killed. For its part, Israel says its attacks "destroyed launching pits" for Iranian-built rockets. Some 31 more rockets were launched from Gaza today, bringing the total to more than 200, according to the Jerusalem Post.