Smoke and fire from the explosion of an Israeli strike rising over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, yesterday, as Israeli air strikes pummelled a wide range of locations along the coastal area and diplomatic efforts intensified to end the two-week war. Photo: APSmoke and fire from the explosion of an Israeli strike rising over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, yesterday, as Israeli air strikes pummelled a wide range of locations along the coastal area and diplomatic efforts intensified to end the two-week war. Photo: AP

Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip yesterday, saying no ceasefire was near as top US and UN diplomats pursued talks on halting the fighting that has claimed more than 600 lives.

US Secretary of State John Kerry held discussions in neighbouring Egypt, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and planned to see the Palestinian prime minister in the occupied West Bank today.

However, there was no let-up in fighting around Gaza, with plumes of black smoke spiralling into the sky, and Israeli shells raining down on the coastal Palestinian enclave.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned US carriers from flying to or from Ben-Gurion International Airport, after a rocket fired from Gaza struck near the airport’s fringes, injuring two people.

European airlines including Germany’s Lufthansa, Air-France and Dutch airline KLM said they were halting flights there too. Israel’s flagship carrier El Al continued flights as usual.

Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt missile salvoes out of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the dominant group in the coastal territory, which was angered by a crackdown on its supporters in the occupied West Bank and suffering economic hardship because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

“A ceasefire is not near,” said Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, viewed as the most dovish member of Netanyahu’s inner security cabinet. “I see no light at the end of the tunnel,” she told Israel’s Army Radio.

Dispatched by US President Barack Obama to the Middle East to seek a ceasefire, Kerry held talks yesterday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri.

“There is a framework... to end the violence and that framework is the Egyptian initiative,” Kerry said at a news conference with Shukri.

“For the sake of thousands of innocent families whose lives have been shaken and destroyed by this conflict, on all sides, we hope we can get there as soon as possible.”

Egypt was key to securing an end to a previous bout of Gaza fighting in 2012, but the country’s new leadership is openly hostile to Hamas, possibly complicating the negotiations.

I see no light at the end of the tunnel

“We hope (Kerry’s) visit will result in a ceasefire that provides the necessary security for the Palestinian people and that we can commence to address the medium and long-term issues related to Gaza,” Shukri said.

With the conflict entering its third week, the Palestinian death toll rose to 616, including nearly 100 children and many other civilians, Gaza health officials said.

The latest strikes killed a six-month-old infant and a 24-year-old Palestinian in northern Gaza, in addition to a Palestinian bombed on a motorcycle elsewhere in the territory, Palestinian health officials said.

The Israeli military said it had killed 183 militants.

Israel’s casualties also mounted, with the military announcing the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the number of army fatalities to 27 – almost three times as many as were killed in the last ground invasion of Gaza, in a 2008-2009 war.

Two Israeli civilians have also been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.

Addressing reporters, with Netanyahu at his side, Ban said: “My message to Israelis and Palestinians is the same: Stop fighting. Start talking. And take on the root causes of the conflict, so we are not back to the same situation in another six months or a year.”

Kerry has said the US would provide $47 million in humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip. He plans to stay in Cairo until this morning but has no set departure date from the region.

An Egyptian official who attended some of Kerry’s meetings said Ban was working toward reaching a humanitarian truce, perhaps lasting for several days, to get aid into the territory.

“The sensitivities between Egypt and Hamas are what is halting a final inclusive ceasefire deal,” the official said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Western-backed Fatah movement also proposed a formula for ending the fighting, calling for an immediate ceasefire followed by five days of negotiations.

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