The new peace effort came as eight members of a single family were killed in Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza, after Israel warned it was poised to broaden its ground operations.
Earlier, US President Barack Obama said that he had telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to voice concerns about the crisis and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met foreign leaders for talks.
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In the face of Israel's land, sea and air offensive, the Islamist movement Hamas remained defiant and warned the Jewish state it would "drown in the swamp of Gaza".
The UN, on Friday, said that secretary general Ban Ki-moon would fly to the region on Saturday in a bid to end the violence.
"The secretary general is prepared to do his part. He will leave for the region tomorrow to express solidarity with the Israelis and Palestinians," under secretary general for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman told emergency talks at the security council.
He said Ban would help Israelis and Palestinians "in coordination with regional and international actors, end the violence and find a way forward".
Palestinian children mourn the death of their relatives
Israel's ground incursion, launched on the tenth day of an operation to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza, has killed dozens and forced thousands of people to flee.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA has opened 34 of its schools to shelter those fleeing.
"The number of people coming to UNRWA seeking sanctuary from the fighting in Gaza has nearly doubled today," spokesman Chris Gunness said on Friday.
"It has risen from 22,000 to over 40,000," he added. On Friday, Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to ready for "the possibility of a significant broadening of the ground activity".
Immediately afterwards, he convened his security cabinet to discuss plans for a possible expansion of the campaign, which began on July 8 with the aim of stamping out crossborder rocket fire.
Smoke billows from a Palestinian building following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City
In Gaza, a relative lull in the violence that took hold during the day came to an end by mid-evening, with intensifying tank shelling and air strikes killing more than a dozen people.
Among them were eight members of a single family killed by tank fire on their home in northern Gaza's Beit Hanun, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Four children from the family were among the dead, joining another four children killed in several separate incidents of tank fire east of Gaza City, the youngest of them just two years old.
The deaths, and those of others in the evening throughout Gaza, brought the number killed since midnight to 51, and raised the overall toll in 11 days of fighting in Gaza to 292 people killed.
An Israeli civilian and a soldier have also been killed. In Gaza, the World Food Programme said that it had already distributed emergency food rations and food vouchers to more than 20,000 displaced people since the conflict erupted on July 8.
But with the ground operation, it was gearing up for a huge increase in the coming days, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva.
"In the next few days, WFP hopes to reach 85,000 people with food distributions," she said.
Gaza was also struggling with a 70 per cent power outage after electricity lines from Israel were damaged, officials said.
Israel has said that the aim of the ground operation is to destroy Hamas's network of tunnels which are used for crossborder attacks on southern Israel.
"It is not possible to deal with tunnels only from the air, so our soldiers are also doing that on the ground," Netanyahu said, although he admitted there was "no guarantee of 100 per cent success".
Obama told reporters in Washington that the US supports Israel's right to defend itself, but also said Washington was "deeply concerned about the risks of further escalation and the loss of more innocent life".
He added that Washington was "hopeful" that Israel would operate "in a way that minimizes civilian casualties".
Israeli soldiers stand on top of their tanks and armoured personnel carriers
Israel pulled out all of its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but within a year it became the de facto seat of Hamas after it won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, Abbas arrived in Turkey where he urged support for an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire proposal.
And French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Abbas had urged Paris to ask Hamas allies — Qatar and Turkey — to pressure the group into accepting a ceasefire.
Shortly before Abbas arrived, Israel said it was pulling out some of its diplomatic staff following violent protests targeting its embassy and consulate buildings in Ankara and Istanbul.
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