Israeli negotiators are in Cairo today for talks on a Gaza truce, a spokesman said, but a dispute over the presence of Israeli troops on Gaza’s southern border remained among sticking points, AFP reports.

Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea and Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, were in the Egyptian capital and “negotiating to advance a hostage (release) agreement”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP late on Thursday.

Witnesses on Friday reported combat in the territory’s north, heavy shelling in the centre, and tank fire in the far south near Rafah city.

“Civilians are exhausted and terrified, running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight,” Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said late Thursday.

“This cannot continue,” he said.