THREE SHELLS FIRED from Gaza have hit Israel – just hours into a UN-proposed ceasefire aimed at allowing humanitarian aid getting to the battered region.

The Israeli army says that the shells struck in the region of Eshkol, which borders the southern Gaza Strip. However, the army has not given any further details.

Just as the five-hour ceasefire got underway, Israel said that it foiled an “infiltration” by 13 Gazan militants who had tunnelled into Israel.

“This morning our forces successfully foiled a terror attack,” army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told journalists in a telephone briefing.

The militants emerged from a tunnel under the southern Gaza border, and were headed towards Sufa kibbutz, a small community just over a kilometre away, when they were spotted, Lerner said.

Israeli forces said that they had killed one of the militants. Hamas’s armed wing, the Exxedine al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the operation.

However, they denied that any members had been killed.

Read: Israel and Hamas agree to five-hour stoppage of hostilities