As the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on both Israel and Islamist militants in Gaza to obey an immediate and unconditional truce, the US president placed a personal call to Binyamin Netanyahu.
Mr Obama pressed Mr Netanyahu to push on towards a deal with Hamas, suggesting that he offer a peace accord in exchange for the militant group disarming and the destruction of its network of tunnels into Israel.
Mr Netanyahu’s security cabinet met into the early hours to debate what to do next. Powerful voices within the Israeli cabinet have been calling not for a ceasefire but for the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli troops to be intensified and extended.
Since it began 21 days ago, the Israeli Defence Force’s Operation Protective Edge has left 1,050 Palestinians dead, more than 6,000 wounded, and flattened thousands of Palestinian homes into rubble. Israel’s losses are 43 soldiers and three civilians.
Comparative peace reigned in Gaza this morning, as Palestinians awoke to the first day of the three-day holy festival of Eid al-Fitr, the climax of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Israeli troops were still on the ground seeking out Hamas tunnels into Israel, which have been used to launch cross-border raids and store military materiel.
After 12 hours of silence Hamas fired a single rocket in the direction of the Israeli city of Ashkelon early today, prompting three airstrikes and a burst of Israeli artillery fire on Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, said the IDF. “Quiet will be met with quiet,” said an IDF spokesman.
Tensions between Washington and Mr Netanyahu’s government have increased over the last week as John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has shuttled around the Middle East trying to mediate a deal to end the violence.
Mr Kerry’s contacts with Hamas, which Washington formally shuns, were facilitated by Egypt and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, but also by Turkey and Qatar, two relatively new players in the delicate balance of power in the Middle East.
Israel wants Egypt to take the lead in curbing Hamas, and is nervous of the influence of Turkey and Qatar who are sympathetic to Hamas’s demands for Israel to lift its seven year economic blockade which has crippled the Gaza Strip.
The White House said that Mr Obama wanted any truce to be along the lines of an Egyptian deal that ended the last war in Gaza, in November 2012.
The US also supported “regional and international co-ordination to end hostilities”, the White House spokesman said.
Khaled Al-Atteya, the Qatari foreign minister, said that Israel had not respected the 2012 ceasefire agreement and that it was time the blockade of Gaza was lifted.
“The demands of Palestinian brothers are fair, and they are the minimum demands for a dignified life,” said Mr Atteya.
Speaking last night, Mr Netanyahu said that he was open to easing living conditions for the 1.8 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, but that this must be “intertwined” with disarming Hamas.
“I think you can’t get social and economic relief for the people of Gaza without having an assured demilitarisation,” he told CNN.
The UN says that more than 167,000 displaced Gazans have taken refuge in its schools and offices during the Israeli bombardment.
The resolution passed by the UN last night was the Security Council’s strongest statement yet on the conflict. The statement was criticised by both Israel and the Palestinians.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, criticised it as too little, too late, although he hoped that it would be respected and would lead to some improvement in the lives of ordinary Gazans. “You cannot keep 1.8 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in this huge prison,” said Mr Mansour.
Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador, said that the UN resolution failed to mention Israel’s right to defend itself.
There was little holiday cheer in Gaza as Eid began this morning. At a cemetery in the Sheik Radwan area of Gaza City, families come to pay the traditional respect to their ancestors gathered round a large bomb crater that had destroyed several graves.
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