U.S. Says Gaps Remain as Kerry Presses Gaza Truce

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry worked the phones, including with Hamas allies, on Thursday, as he pressed efforts to end the bloodshed in Gaza, but aides warned gaps remained.

A day after he flew into Israel and cited signs of progress, Kerry was hunkered down in Egypt -- which drafted a proposal to halt the Israel-Hamas conflict -- and spoke to regional leaders by telephone.

"Right now gaps remain between the parties, so his focus is on finding a formula that both sides can accept," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

"But he isn’t here for an indefinite amount of time and in the near future he will determine whether there is a willingness to come to an agreement on a ceasefire."

Kerry, who has been in the region since Monday, spoke repeatedly Thursday to the foreign ministers of Qatar and Turkey in the hope that the two countries would use their influence to encourage Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan which the Islamist group has so far rejected, the official said.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal is based in Qatar, while Turkey's Islamist-oriented Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has strongly criticized Israel's assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza as well as Egypt's role in trying to clinch a ceasefire.

Kerry also spoke again with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after meeting him for two hours in Tel Aviv late Wednesday.

Kerry's mission comes as violence intensified on the 17th day of the conflict. Fifteen people were killed when an Israeli shell slammed into a U.N. shelter where hundreds of people had taken refuge, sending the Gaza death toll to 798, many of them Palestinian civilians.

Kerry's spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said that the United States was "deeply saddened and concerned about the tragic incident", without explicitly blaming its ally Israel for the shelling.

“We again urge all parties to redouble their efforts to protect civilians,” she said.

Psaki also condemned the storage of weapons in U.N. facilities, in an allusion to Hamas which triggered the military campaign by showering Israel with rockets.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond -- who was in Cairo along with Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- warned that the civilian casualties were hardening views toward Israel.

"The sense of sympathy for Israel that was under attack from Hamas rockets 10 days ago is eroding fast as the casualties are mounting in Gaza," Hammond told reporters.

"It is important that decision makers in Israel understand what is happening with public opinions in Western countries," he said.

Hamas has rejected the ceasefire proposal by Egypt's military-backed government, insisting that Israel end its eight-year siege on the impoverished Gaza Strip.

But a senior Hamas official acknowledged on Wednesday that it was unrealistic to expect the blockade to end in tandem with a ceasefire.

Diplomats said that an agreement may include a temporary halt to the violence followed by talks on issues dear to Hamas including how to guarantee the opening of Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Israel, which initially accepted a truce, has said it will keep up its military campaign to eliminate tunnels that infiltrate the Jewish state from Gaza.

Kerry also spoke by telephone to Western colleagues including Foreign Minister Boerge Brende of Norway, the chair of the so-called Ad Hoc Liaison Committee which coordinates development aid to the Palestinians.

Norway is working to arrange a new aid conference for September in Oslo, although no final decision has been made, foreign ministry spokesman Frode Andersen said.

After a previous Israeli military campaign in Gaza in 2009, donors met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh and promised more than $4.4 billion to rebuild the impoverished territory over two years.

But much of the aid was held up, as donor countries refuse to channel money through Hamas while Israel blocks shipments of goods it says could be used in attacks.