Israel Resumes Attack After Pause for Aid Delivery

JERUSALEM — Israel said Wednesday that it would send senior officials to talk with Egypt about halting the conflict in Gaza, but there were no immediate signs of a diplomatic breakthrough. Fighting between Israel and Hamas militants continued after a brief pause earlier in the day.

Israel suspended its military operations in Gaza for three hours on Wednesday to allow humanitarian aid and fuel for power generation to reach Gazans, who used the afternoon break to shop.

But fighting resumed soon afterward. In the evening, the Israeli Army dropped leaflets warning the citizens of Rafah, next to the border with Egypt, to leave their homes. Israel has been bombing the tunnel networks through which arms and consumer goods are smuggled from Egypt into Gaza.

Hamas fired 22 rockets into Israel, but no one was wounded.

The Israeli government said it welcomed the efforts of France and Egypt to work out a durable cease-fire. It said it would end its assault if Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel and ended the smuggling of weapons from Egypt. It said that if a durable cease-fire took hold, it would reopen border crossings into Gaza for goods and people. But Israeli and Hamas officials both denied an assertion by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that a cease-fire had been agreed upon.