Gaza ceasefire a marvellous thing: Abbott

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says a 72-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza conflict is a "marvellous humanitarian thing".

Mr Abbott said Australia had been working at the United Nations for the immediate ceasefire, which will begin at 8am local time (1500 AEST) on Friday.

"That will be a marvellous humanitarian thing," he told reporters on Friday.

The unconditional ceasefire is understood to have been agreed by both sides to enable negotiations on a more durable truce in the three-week-old fighting.

"I deplore any actions which result in civilian deaths and obviously we've seen far too much of that over the last few weeks," Mr Abbott said.

More than 1300 Palestinians have died in the fighting, along with 58 Israelis.