570 Palestinians killed as Israel batters Gaza

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry were in Cairo on Tuesday in a bid to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas after two weeks of fighting which has left over 570 Palestinians dead. Many of those killed in the relentless Israeli campaign of shelling and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which entered its 15th day, were women and children. On the Israeli side 25 soldiers and two civilians have died. World powers have urged Hamas to accept an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and stop raining rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, demands it has so far resisted. ‘Only Hamas now needs to make the decision to spare innocent civilians from this violence,’ Kerry said, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed for the violence to ‘stop now’. Kerry, who arrived in Cairo to try and intensify truce efforts, pledged $ 47 million in humanitarian aid for the battered Gaza Strip. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi too urged Hamas to accept an Egyptian proposal to end the fighting it had turned down last week. Kerry plans to hold his meetings on Tuesday with the Egyptian leadership including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. However US officials acknowledge that the truce efforts could prove trickier than in the past as Egypt – long the key regional broker – had little leverage with Hamas after the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year, according to AFP.