Kerry heads to Egypt on Gaza crisis
July 21, 2014, 4:36 am

More than 500 Palestinians and 15 Israelis have been killed in two weeks of fighting [Xinhua]

Kerry’s expected visit comes as the United Nations Security Council met in a late session on Sunday and called for an immediate ceasefire.

An earlier Security Council meeting did not issue any binding resolutions.

A ceasefire brokered by Egypt with Arab League and US backing last week collapsed within hours after Hamas rejected it and Israel resumed its aerial and artillery bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Kerry signaled at the time that he would return to the Middle East should ceasefire efforts fail.

“The United States – and our international partners – are deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation, and the loss of more innocent life,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement.

Sunday marked one of the bloodiest days of fighting since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge to destroy homemade rockets fired into its cities.

Palestinian medical sources said that over 100 people were killed on Sunday, the fourth day of Israel’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian death toll over the past two week has reached 501 (revised from 434) dead and 2,600 wounded; roughly one in four of the casualties have been children.

On Sunday, the Israeli military said that 13 of its soldiers had been killed and said it was investigating reports a soldier had been captured by Palestinian fighters.

Tel Aviv two weeks ago launched a series of aerial assaults on Gaza in an operation called Protective Raid in response to what its military said were dozens of homemade rockets fired by Palestinian fighters into Israeli territory.

But Palestinian armed groups in Gaza blamed Israel for the latest escalation, saying that it had killed seven of their fighters and that they were firing homemade rockets in retaliation.

The air campaign and land invasion followed heightened tensions and fears of reprisal attacks as both Israeli and Palestinian families reel from the brutal killing of three Jewish and one Arab male teens

Source: Agencies