There's No Clear Way Out Of Israel's Pummeling Of Gaza

REUTERS/Gali TibbonIsrael's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem July 6, 2014.

There is no clear nonmilitary solution to end the barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel and consequent Israeli airstrikes on the impoverished strip, Barak Ravid of Haaretz reports.

The problem is that there is no reliable mediator between the government Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.

"Even top [Israeli] officials have no idea how or when this conflict will end, according to government sources, and Israeli officials say they don't know what Hamas hopes to achieve from the fighting," Al Jazeera reports.

Meanwhile, the war continues to escalate: More than 70 people have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes while Jerusalem considers sending in ground forces to end the rockets that threaten civilian areas all over Israel.

Ravid notes that the U.S. does not have the same leverage that in November 2012, when it helped broker a cease-fire through then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

And the current Egyptian government of Abdul Fattah el-Sisi would not mind if IDF jets continue to pound areas governed by militant Islamists.

Turkey and Qatar, which provide support for Hamas leaders, are also unreliable brokers.