Dubai: UN chief Ban Ki-moon demanded Tuesday that Israel and Hamas halt the spiralling violence in Gaza as he pushed diplomatic efforts to end bloodshed that has killed 620 Palestinians.
Following top-level truce talks in Cairo, the UN secretary-general headed to Israel to deliver his message in person as the 15-day conflict showed no sign of easing.
“My message to Israelis and Palestinians is the same: Stop fighting, start talking and take on the root causes of the conflict so that we are not at the same situation in the next six months or a year,” he said.
In Cairo, US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed ceasefire proposals with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi with both voicing guarded hopes of an end to the violence. But neither side showed any willingness to pull back, with Israel refusing to halt its fire without finishing a ground operation to destroy tunnels used by fighters for cross-border attacks.
A Reuters report said, security officers checked Kerry and his top aides with a metal detector as they arrived for the meeting with Al Sissi, an unusual screening for a senior State Department official.
On the ground in Gaza, the Palestinian toll rose more than 620. Among the dead were two children and nine women, one of whom was pregnant, medics said.
The Israeli military said two more of its soldiers had been killed in the fighting a day earlier, hiking the overall Israeli death toll to 29, among them 27 soldiers. It also confirmed a soldier whom Hamas claimed they had kidnapped was dead, saying his body remained unaccounted for.
Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said Tuesday they are suspending service between the US and Israel indefinitely, after a rocket from Gaza landed in an area near an international airport.
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