Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Israel would be held to account for the children among 40 people dead in three days of air strikes on Gaza.

"Everyone must know that sooner or later there will be a holding to account for the massacre of these innocent children killed inhumanely in Gaza," he said in a speech at Cairo University.

Twelve people were killed and three injured when a truck smashed into a minibus near the Egyptian capital on Saturday, police said, just hours after 47 nursery school children died in a road accident.

Officials said a speeding truck driving on the wrong side of the road crashed into a minibus carrying 15 passengers. The truck driver was arrested at the scene in the 6th October area, as rescue services worked to extract the bodies, police said.

Egypt and Turkey put the onus on Israel on Saturday to end the fighting around Gaza as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Cairo a day after Washington urged the two governments to pressure the Palestinians.

Erdogan, who headed straight into talks with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi after landing in Cairo, blamed Israel for the latest upsurge in violence.

Dozens of nursery school children were among 49 people killed Saturday when a train smashed into their bus in central Egypt after a railway signal operator fell asleep, officials said, prompting protests and resignations.

Transport Minister Rashad al-Metini stepped down in the wake of the tragedy, saying he "accepts responsibility," while President Mohamed Morsi also accepted the resignation of the Egyptian Railway Authority head.

Malaysia and Egypt have agreed to ask "international power brokers" to help stop escalating violence in the Middle East, the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian country said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement from his office that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi called him late Friday to discuss the latest Israeli air strikes on Hamas-controlled Gaza.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the conflict in Gaza.

"The president reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives," the White House said in a summary of the conversation.

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi will not attend the enthronement of the new Coptic pope, a man said to be open to dialogue with Islam but opposed to a religious state, the bishop organizing the ceremony said on Friday.

Instead, Morsi will "send a representative" to Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral for Sunday's enthronement of Bishop Tawadros, Bishop Baula was quoted by state news agency MENA as saying, without saying why the president would not attend.

Thousands are protesting across Egypt against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The demonstrations come on the day that Egypt's prime minister, Hesham Kandil, traveled to Gaza in a symbolic show of support for the territory's Hamas rulers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday called on Cairo to use its influence on Hamas to ease tensions in the Gaza Strip as Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil visited the violence-wracked area.

"The federal chancellor calls on the Egyptian government to use its influence on Hamas to push it towards a moderation of the violence," Merkel's deputy spokesman Georg Streiter told a regular government news conference.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Friday that Israel had the right to protect its people against Gaza rocket attacks but urged it to stick to a "proportionate" response.

Deploring the loss of civilian lives on both sides, Ashton said in a statement that "the rocket attacks by Hamas and other factions in Gaza which began this current crisis are totally unacceptable for any government and must stop."