News desk :Israel bombed Al-Aqsa and four other mosques, a sports stadium and the home of the late Hamas military chief across the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, a Gaza police official said, as the UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the US Secretary of State John Kerry launched a high-level effort to end two weeks of deadly fighting. The Israeli also damaged the Al-Shalam (Peace) tower in Gaza.BBC adds: A diplomatic push to broker a truce in the Gaza Strip is however intensifying, as Israel continues its military operation against Palestinians in the territory.US Secretary of State John Kerry has said a plan formulated by Egypt will be the framework for any ceasefire.Meanwhile, Israeli media have quoted the army as saying a soldier is missing. Media say he is presumed dead.More than 600 Palestinians and 29 Israelis have been killed in the past 14 days of fighting, officials say.The latest Palestinian death toll was announced by Gaza’s health ministry, which also said that 3,640 people had been injured.The UN relief agency in Gaza says more than 100,000 Palestinians have taken refuge in its schools. It says 43% of Gaza has been affected by evacuation warnings or declared no-go zones.The majority of Palestinians killed were civilians, including dozens of children, according to the UN.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says 27 Israeli soldiers have died. The other two victims were civilians. The IDF also says it has killed at least 170 Hamas. After the talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, John Kerry said the US was concerned about Palestinian civilian casualties, but lent his support to Israel’s “appropriate and legitimate” military operation.Kerry, speaking in Egypt, also said the US was sending $47m (£28m) in aid to Gaza “to alleviate the immediate humanitarian crisis”.In a joint statement later with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Ban said that talks so far had been “constructive”.He repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire, and said the underlying causes of the crisis needed to be addressed.Kerry is expected to stay in Cairo until at least Wednesday for talks with Egyptian officials and the Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.Kerry urged Hamas to “make the decision to spare innocent civilians”, a call echoed by Arabi, who said the group should accept an Egyptian proposal to end the fighting.Hamas rejected that proposal last week, with its armed wing saying agreeing to it would amount to “surrender”.The UN Security Council has issued a call for an “immediate cessation of hostilities”, but did not endorse a strongly worded draft resolution backed by Arab states.Ban is due to travel to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and meetings with Palestinian officials in the West Bank.Ban said he appreciated Israel’s right to defend itself, but said restrictions on Gaza should be lifted “so that people should not resort to this kind of violence as a way of expressing their grievances”.Israel launched its ground operation in Gaza after days of air strikes, following rocket fire by militants into Israeli towns. It says the move is necessary to target Hamas’ network of tunnels, which have been used by militants to get into Israel and carry out attacks.On Tuesday, the IDF named 21-year-old Sgt Oron Shaul as the last of seven soldiers reported killed in a single incident in Shejaiya, near Gaza City, on Sunday.The troops are all believed to have died when their armoured personnel carrier was attacked.Hamas said on Sunday evening that it had captured an Israeli soldier, but Israel’s UN ambassador denied the claim.
