Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appeared slim as as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out.
The two sides blamed each other for the impasse.
In their second day of truce talks in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Hamas negotiators maintained their stance that any truce agreement must end the war, Palestinian officials said.
The Hamas delegation will leave tonight to consult with the movement's leadership.
"The meeting with the Egyptian intelligence minister has ended and the Hamas delegation is leaving for Doha for further consultations," said a Hamas official, who is close to the negotiations, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to publicly discuss the talks.
Egyptian state-linked media said that Hamas would return for more talks on Tuesday.
"The Hamas delegation has left Cairo this evening for Doha in order to conduct consultations, and will return Tuesday to conclude the negotiations" towards a truce in the war with Israel, said Al-Qahera News, a site linked to Egyptian intelligence services, citing an unidentified "informed source".
The negotiators for the Palestinian militant group arrived in Cairo yesterday.
Israeli officials have not travelled to Cairo to take part in indirect diplomacy, but today Mr Netanyahu reiterated Israel's aim since the start of the war nearly seven months ago: to disarm and dismantle the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas for good or else endanger Israel's future security.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel was willing to pause fighting in Gaza in order to secure the release of hostages still being held by Hamas, believed to number more than 130.
"But while Israel has shown willingness, Hamas remains entrenched in its extreme positions, first among them the demand to remove all our forces from the Gaza Strip, end the war, and leave Hamas in power," Mr Netanyahu said.
"Israel cannot accept that," he added.
Meanwhile an official representing the talks said that Qatar and the US would expert "maximum pressure" on Israel in order for Hamas to continue negotiations.
CIA Director William Burns is traveling to Doha to hold an emergency meeting with Qatar's prime minister.
"Burns is on his way to Doha for an emergency meeting with the Qatari Prime Minister aimed at exerting maximum pressure on Israel and Hamas to continue negotiating," the source added.
In a statement released shortly after Mr Netanyahu's, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said the group is still keen on reaching a comprehensive ceasefire that ends the Israeli "aggression", guarantees Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and achieves "a serious" deal to free Israelis being held hostage in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Mr Haniyeh blamed Mr Netanyahu for "the continuation of the aggression and the expansion of the circle of conflict, and sabotaging the efforts made through the mediators and various parties".
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on 7 October in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the past 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel's assault, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Kerem Shalom attack
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
Israel's military said 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah in southern Gaza towards the area of the crossing, which it said was now closed to aid trucks going into the coastal enclave.
Other crossings remained open.
Hamas' armed wing said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base by the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from.
Hamas media quoted a source close to the group as saying the commercial crossing was not the target.
More than a million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
Shortly after the Hamas attack, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah killing three people and wounding several, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military confirmed the counterstrike, saying it struck the launcher from which the Hamas projectiles were fired, as well as a nearby "military structure".
"The launches carried out by Hamas adjacent to the Rafah Crossing ... are a clear example of the terrorist organisation's systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces and their continued use of the Gazan civilian population as human shields," it said.
Hamas denies it uses civilians as human shields.
Israel has vowed to enter the southern Gaza city and defeat Hamas forces, but has faced mounting pressure to hold fire as the operation could derail humanitarian efforts in Gaza and endanger many more lives.
'You will not chain our hands'
Mr Netanyahu denounced a "volcano of anti-Semitism" and international criticism of Israel's war in Gaza, insisting that no pressure would stop it from defending itself.
"If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone," Mr Netanyahu said.
Speaking at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, he lamented that when the Nazis killed six million Jews during World War II, his people "were totally defenceless against those who sought our destruction.
"No nation came to our aid," he said near an Israeli flag which stood at half-mast while survivors of the Holocaust prepared to light torches.
"Today, we again confront enemies bent on our destruction," Mr Netanyahu told the large crowd gathered for the ceremony.
One yellow chair sat empty representing the hostages still held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
"I say to the leaders of the world, no amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum, will stop Israel from defending itself," he said.
He lamented the surge of criticism seen around the world against Israel over its war in Gaza, ignited after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack.
Mr Netanyahu also compared the protests seen at universities across the United States and around the world to the discrimination against Jews at German universities during World War II.
"What a distortion of justice and history," he said.
The criticism, he said, was not "due to the actions that we do, but because we exist... because we are Jews.
"You will not chain our hands... Israel will continue to fight human evil... until victory," he said.
"We will defeat our genocidal enemies," he added.
The Israeli bombardment has devastated much of the coastal enclave and caused a humanitarian crisis.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters: "If Netanyahu doesn't change his mind, there will be no reason to stay. They can always reconvene if that changes."
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas seemed not to be serious about reaching a truce.
"We are observing worrying signs that Hamas does not intend to reach an agreement with us," Gallant said. "This means strong military action in Rafah will begin in the very near future, and in the rest of the Strip," he said.
Israel has been warning for months it plans to send troops into Rafah, the southern city bordering Egypt where more than a million displaced Gaza residents have taken refuge.
Israel believes thousands of Hamas fighters are in the city, along with potentially dozens of hostages.
Read more about the conflict in the Middle East
Israel has given a preliminary nod to terms that one source said included the return of between 20 and 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a truce of several weeks.
That would leave around 100 hostages in Gaza, some of whom Israel says have died in captivity. The source, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters their return may require an additional deal.
Qatar, where Hamas has a political office, and Egypt are trying to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire, amid international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants.
Washington - which, like other Western powers and Israel, brands Hamas a terrorist group - has urged it to enter a deal.
Thousands of Israelis protested yesterday demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that would see the remaining hostages brought home.
At a rally in Tel Aviv last night, relatives and supporters of the more than 130 hostages still in captivity said anything possible had to be done to bring them home.
"I'm here today to support a deal now, yesterday," said Natalie Eldor.
"We need to bring them back. We need to bring all the hostages back, the live ones, the dead ones. We got to bring them back. We got to switch this government. This has got to end."
It comes as an Israeli airstrike killed four members of a family in a house in a border village in southern Lebanon earlier today, civil defence and security sources said.
The four were killed in Meiss al Jabal, which has suffered extensive damage in regular exchanges of fire between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group since the start of the war in Gaza last October.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it fired "tens" of Katyusha rockets at the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, a northern town close to the Lebanese border, in retaliation.
Airstrikes and shelling have taken place sporadically but both sides have pulled back from all-out war.
