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Kerry En Route to Cairo for Talks on Gaza

by Scott Stearns July 21, 2014

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Cairo for talks with Egyptian leaders and other senior officials on ways to end the fighting in Gaza.

President Barack Obama, in brief comments Monday morning outside the White House, said he had dispatched the nation's top envoy to bring about a cease-fire that stops 'the taking of innocent lives.'

The two-week conflict has killed more than 500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as well as at least 20 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Obama repeated the Jewish state's right to defend itself but said it was important for 'a cessation to hostilities.'

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki says Kerry will support Egypt's initiative to restore a November 2012 cease-fire in Gaza. Psaki says the Obama administration and its international partners are deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in Gaza and the loss of more innocent life.

In an interview with ABC television before leaving Washington, Kerry said Hamas needs to be part of a solution by accepting a cease-fire.

'Hamas has to understand: you cannot sit there and claim moral rectitude or the higher ground while you are busy rocketing people, and capturing people, and digging tunnels to attack them. This has to stop,' he said.

Hamas last week rejected an Egyptian cease-fire as, 'not worth the ink it was written with' because it offered no relief from the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has met with Arab League officials as the head of a new coalition government meant to reunify his Fatah faction in the West Bank with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

But he appears to have little influence with Hamas fighters launching rockets into Israel, calling into question his role in efforts to end the violence.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under pressure from more militant members of his coalition government to expand Israeli ground operations in Gaza, American University professor Guy Ziv says it is too soon to say who will come out of this stronger and who will be weaker.

'We have to see how this plays out. We have to see what the terms of the cease-fire are. And, most importantly, we have to see whether or not there's going to be a diplomatic horizon, which I think is essential. This is where Bibi Netanyahu comes in.' Ziv said. 'He needs to offer the Palestinians a better future and negotiate in earnest with Mahmoud Abbas on a two-state solution. That might actually weaken Hamas much more than the current Israeli operations do.'

Secretary Kerry led nine-months of talks on a two-state solution that ended in April without agreement.

His task in Cairo will be considerably more difficult than two years ago when former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood negotiated the last cease-fire. Egypt's new leader, the former general Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, is far less sympathetic to Hamas, meaning Kerry needs to include those with influence with Hamas, such as Qatar and Turkey.