Senior officials from Israel and Egypt have opened talks on the details of a ceasefire plan aimed at ending Israel’s 12-day offensive against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Diplomats said it was too early to say whether the talks would be successful, but one Israeli official added: “We are working on this very hard with Egypt.”
The Israeli delegation charged with the negotiations included Shalom Turgeman, a top adviser to Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, and Amos Gilad, a senior defence official and close aide to Ehud Barak, the defence minister, officials said. According to Israeli media reports, the two men were expected in Cairo for talks on Thursday, a sign that the government was taking seriously the ceasefire initiative presented on Tuesday night by Nicolas Sarkozy and Hosni Mubarak, the presidents of France and Egypt.
The initiative, which still lacks details, was set to gain further backing, as the foreign ministers of the US, Britain and France on Wednesday negotiated with Arab leaders on a formal United Nations statement in support of the Egyptian move to end the bloodshed in Gaza.
Israeli forces, which launched a massive ground offensive on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, halted their attacks on the territory for three hours on Wednesday to allow in humanitarian supplies for the embattled civilian population. The move followed the worst loss of civilian life in the strip since the war started, when Israeli fire on a UN-run school in northern Gaza killed at least 40 Palestinians on Tuesday.
However, Israeli troops and Hamas fighters resumed their clashes in the late afternoon. The Israeli assault has claimed at least 650 Palestinian lives since the outbreak of hostilities, including some 300 civilians, according to reports from Gaza. Israel has lost seven soldiers and four civilians, mainly to “friendly fire” incidents and to Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks.
Egypt has called for an immediate ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, followed by negotiations between Israel and Cairo aimed at boosting security along the Gaza-Egypt border. The Israeli government is adamant that it will not halt its military offensive unless Hamas militants stop firing rockets on Israel and a way is found to stop the Islamist group from rearming once the war is over.
That leaves a potentially decisive gap between the Egyptian-French proposal and Israel’s current demands. A spokesman for Mr Olmert said the government “welcomed” the plan but stopped short of confirming initial French claims that Israel had accepted it.
Hamas stressed again on Wednesday that it would agree to a ceasefire only if it involved the reopening of border crossings between the Gaza Strip and the outside world. Both Israel and Egypt have sealed their borders to all but the most basic humanitarian supplies and they keep tight restrictions on who can enter and leave the territory.
Mr Sarkozy was quick to claim credit for what his officials called a “step forward” in the crisis after a whirlwind tour of the Middle East earlier this week.
