Israel pounds Gaza despite international peace efforts --- (Reuters) - Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, saying no ceasefire was near as top U.S. and United Nations diplomats pursued talks on halting the fighting that has claimed more than 600 lives. -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held discussions in neighbouring Egypt, while U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and later with the Palestinian prime minister in the occupied West Bank. -- However, there was no let-up in the fighting around Gaza, with plumes of black smoke spiralling into the sky, and Israeli shells raining down on the coastal Palestinian enclave. -- Dealing a blow to Israel's economy already reeling from a spate of tourism cancellations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) took the rare step of banning U.S. carriers from flying to or from Ben-Gurion International Airport for at least 24 hours after a rocket fired from Gaza struck near the airport's fringes, injuring two people. -- European airlines including Germany's Lufthansa, Air-France, Dutch airline KLM, Norwegian Air SAS and Turkish Airlines, said they were halting flights there too. Israel's flagship carrier El Al continued flights as usual. -- Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt missile salvoes out of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the dominant group in the coastal territory, which was angered by a crackdown on its supporters in the occupied West Bank and suffering economic hardship because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. -- "A ceasefire is not near," said Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, viewed as the most dovish member of Netanyahu's inner security cabinet. "I see no light at the end of the tunnel," she told Israel's Army Radio. --- Dispatched by U.S. President Barack Obama to the region to seek a ceasefire, Kerry met on Tuesday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri. "There is a framework ... to end the violence and that framework is the Egyptian initiative," Kerry said at a news conference with Shukri. -- "For the sake of thousands of innocent families whose lives have been shaken and destroyed by this conflict, on all sides, we hope we can get there as soon as possible," he said. - More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-palestinians-israel-idUSKBN0FP00U20140722