Kerry Urges Hamas To Accept Gaza Truce Offer

US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on the Palestinian group, Hamas, to accept a ceasefire along the lines of an Egyptian proposal, to end the raging Gaza conflict that has already killed at least 607 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.
The top US diplomat spoke in Cairo on Tuesday after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government offered the ceasefire proposal last week, which calls for both Israel and Hamas to accept an immediate ceasefire and dispatch envoys to Cairo for further negotiations.
The Palestinian leadership has proposed to Egypt a plan for a ceasefire to be followed by five days of negotiations to stop the fighting, Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters in Cairo on Tuesday.
Kerry's call comes as United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv to discuss how to stop the ongoing bloodshed and begin negotiating.
"My message is the same for Israelis and Palestinians: 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 response, Netanyahu said, "we will do what we need to do to defend ourselves".
The Israeli prime minister said that the international community must hold Hamas accountable for consistently rejecting multiple ceasefire proposals.