A Palestinian child standing behind the gate of Rafah crossing cries as he tries to cross into Egypt with his family, in the southern Gaza Strip
A Palestinian child standing behind the gate of Rafah crossing cries as he tries to cross into Egypt with his family, in the southern Gaza Strip July 10, 2014. At least 74 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's Gaza offensive, Palestinian officials said on Thursday, and militants kept up rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and other cities in warfare showing no signs of ending soon. Egypt's state news agency said Egyptian authorities had decided to open the Rafah border crossing to Gaza on Thursday to allow wounded Palestinians to receive medical care in Egypt. Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Cairo has secured closures on the Gaza border, increasing economic pressure on Hamas from a long-running Israeli blockade. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

The United States is ready to negotiate peace talks between Palestine and Israel after 81 Palestinians were killed within three days from Israeli airstrikes. One may wonder what held the White House back so far as the death toll continued to rise by leaps and bounds in Palestine. At least half of the reported casualties involved women and children. Interestingly, there is no Israeli casualty reported yet.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke about his willingness to initiate peace talks between the warring countries to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There has been a sharp rise in Palestinian death toll in the last couple of days as Israel continued its aerial assaults in Gaza even on Thursday, July 10. At least 16 were killed in a couple of air strikes which wrecked two houses and a café in Southern Gaza.

This is the holy month of Ramadan in Palestine, where the vast majority of population follow Islam as their religion. Muslims are strongly discouraged against fighting or getting involved in any kind of violence during this month when they fast for the entire day from sunrise to sunset and make themselves absorbed in religious activities. Israeli militants apparently do not care much about any such Islamic practice as Lt Col Peter Lerner, the spokesman of the Israeli military, confirmed that the country had been successful in striking over 320 Hamas targets throughout the night on Wednesday. Israel has claimed to have struck over 750 targets from the Palestinian Islamist organisation over the last three days.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, expressed concern over the civilian casualties as he told Mr Netanyahu that both the countries should "do everything" to "restore calm." He also said that the White House would like to negotiate "a return to the November 2012 ceasefire agreement."

In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande too asked for ceasefire in Gaza. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier asked both the countries to show restraint. Israel, on the other hand, continues to claim that it is the militants in Gaza that it plans to eliminate, while, in reality, it is the destitute civilians who suffer political insanity.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au