Egypt to host talks on Gaza peace plan

Egypt was preparing to meet representatives of Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority today in an attempt to halt the fighting in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel turned its fire on suspected smuggling tunnels near Gaza’s border with Egypt and Hamas responded with a rocket barrage.

The United Nations Security Council failed to reach agreement on a ceasefire resolution yesterday, but strides were made on the diplomatic front.

The US threw its weight behind a deal being brokered by France and Egypt and Egypt’s UN ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said Israeli, Palestinian and Hamas representatives would meet Egyptian officials separately in Cairo today.

He said “everybody has agreed to send a technical delegation” to Cairo for talks on the Egyptian-French truce proposal.

Israeli air strikes killed 29 Palestinians yesterday after leaflets were dropped warning residents to leave the area “because Hamas uses your houses to hide and smuggle military weapons”.

The casualties brought the total Palestinian death toll during Israel’s 12-day assault to 688 and drove home the complexities of finding a diplomatic end game for Israel’s Gaza invasion. Ten Israelis have been killed, including three civilians, since the offensive began on December 27.

More than 5,000 people have fled the border area, seeking refuge at two UN schools that were turned into temporary shelters.

The fury of the renewed fighting made it appear each side was scrambling to get in as many hits as possible before a truce could materialise.

“I feel like the ground is shaking when we hear the shelling. People are terrified,” said Fida Kishta, who lives in the Gaza-Egypt border area where Israeli planes destroyed 16 empty houses.

In Turkey, a Middle East diplomat said that country would be asked to put together an international force that could help keep the peace. And diplomats in New York worked on a UN Security Council statement backing the ceasefire initiative, but failed to reach agreement on action to end the violence.

“We are very much applauding the efforts of a number of states, particularly the effort that President (Hosni) Mubarak has undertaken on behalf of Egypt,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

“We’re supporting that initiative.”

The Israeli military, which has refused to allow journalists into Gaza, permitted two TV teams to accompany soldiers on patrol for the first time. The footage showed soldiers walking through a deserted street in an unidentified location in Gaza.

The Israeli military correspondent who accompanied the soldiers said they were concerned about Hamas booby-traps. He said they were shooting through walls, throwing grenades around corners, going from house to house looking for Hamas gunmen and using bomb sniffer dogs.

Hamas, meanwhile, fired rockets, though at a slower pace than previous days, hitting the towns of Ashkelon and Beersheba with the sort of longer range missiles never seen before this war. Rockets were still hitting the cities after midnight, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Early today, Palestinians reported more than 20 air strikes around Gaza. One person was killed and 10 wounded. There were also clashes between Israeli armoured forces and Hamas militants in southern Gaza.

Despite the violence, a surprise announcement in Paris yesterday put a spotlight on diplomacy.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said both Israel and the Palestinian Authority had accepted the ceasefire deal, but he made no mention of Hamas, without whom no truce could work.

The Palestinian Authority controls only the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza - two territories on opposite sides of Israel that are supposed to make up a future Palestinian state.

Later, Israeli officials made it clear Mr Sarkozy’s statement was not exactly accurate.

“Israel welcomes the initiative of the French president and the Egyptian president to bring about a sustainable quiet in the south,” said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.

But for Israel to accept the proposal, he said, “there has to be a total and complete cessation of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and ... we have to see an arms embargo on Hamas that will receive international support”.

For its part, Hamas said it would not accept a deal unless it included an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza – something Israel says it is not willing to do.

Growing international outrage over the human toll of Israel’s offensive, which includes 3,000 Palestinians wounded – could work against continued fighting. So could President George Bush’s departure from office this month and a February 10 election in Israel.

But Israel has a big interest in inflicting as much damage as possible on Hamas, both to stop militant rocket fire on southern Israeli towns and to diminish the group’s ability to play a spoiler role in peace talks with Palestinian moderates.

The Israeli Cabinet decided yesterday to push ahead with the offensive while at the same time pursuing the ceasefire option. Israeli officials also rejected Hamas’ call to open the border crossings, which Israel has largely kept closed since the group seized the territory by force in June 2007.

The military has called up thousands of reserve troops that it could use to expand the Gaza offensive.

Israel briefly suspended its offensive yesterday to allow humanitarian supplies to reach Gaza and Israeli officials said such lulls would be declared on a regular basis.