Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, saying no ceasefire was near as top United States. and United Nations diplomats pursued talks on a ceasefire, according to The Associated Press.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held discussions in neighbouring Egypt, while U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and later with the Palestinian prime minister in the occupied West Bank, the AP reported.
The U.S. and Egypt sought Tuesday to find an end to two weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, and officials raised the possibility of restarting stalled peace talks between Israel and Palestinian authorities as a necessary step to avoid sustained violence, according to the AP.
"A ceasefire is not near," said Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, viewed as the most dovish member of Netanyahu's inner security cabinet, the AP reported. "I see no light at the end of the tunnel," she told Israel's Army Radio.
It's unlikely that Washington is ready to wade back into the morass of peace negotiations that broke off last April after nearly nine months of shuttle diplomacy by Kerry, according to the AP.
Kerry, meeting with Egypt's president and other high-level officials, stopped short of advocating a new round of peace talks, but he left the door open for broad negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials once a cease-fire is in place, the AP reported.
"Just reaching a cease-fire is clearly not enough," Kerry told reporters after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, according to the AP. "It is imperative that there be a serious engagement, discussion, negotiation, regarding the underlying issues and addressing all the concerns that have brought us to where we are today."
Egypt has proposed a cease-fire plan that is backed by the U.S. and Israel but been rejected by Hamas, the AP reported.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said Tuesday's talks were focused "to not only resolve this issue, but also to set in motion once again the peace process that Secretary Kerry has been so actively involved in so as to end this ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis," according to the AP.
Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt missile salvos 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, the AP reported.
