Egypt Pushes Hamas To Accept Truce

CAIRO, Egypt — Egyptian mediators pushed the militant Palestinian group Hamas to accept a truce proposal for the embattled Gaza Strip in talks Tuesday, while the U.N. secretary-general headed to the region to join diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has backed the Egyptian truce proposal to halt the fighting, now in its third week. Before leaving New York for the Egyptian capital on Tuesday, he urged Israel and Hamas to accept a U.N. cease-fire resolution and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

"To both sides, I say: Just stop, now," Ban told a news conference Monday. "Too many people have died." He said Hamas militants who have been firing rockets into southern Israel "must stop, they must look to the future of the Palestinian people."

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously supported Ban's efforts after he briefed the council behind closed doors.

Tuesday's talks between Hamas and Egyptian officials in Cairo were the latest in intensive diplomatic efforts. In Damascus, the Turkish prime minister's top foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu, met for the third time in two days with Hamas' exiled political leader, Khaled Mashaal.

But so far, the push has yielded little public progress.

Hamas' deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al-Jazeera TV that the Egyptian proposal is not acceptable as it stands. Hamas has "amendments" for it and if "taken into consideration, it will be a framework for moving toward a solution," he said.

A Palestinian official close to Hamas said the previous round of Egypt-Hamas talks on Sunday were "stormy." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing closed-door talks.

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Israel's point man to the cease-fire talks, Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad, is slated to come to Cairo Thursday, Israeli Defense Ministry officials said Tuesday. Gilad had put off the trip for days, saying the time was not yet ripe.

Defense officials say that depending on what happens in Cairo, Israel will decide whether to move closer to a cease-fire or launch a new, even tougher stage of its offensive. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing sensitive policy matters.

The U.N. Secretary-General won't meet Hamas officials or go to Gaza during his trip, which also includes Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait.

During the Sunday negotiating session, Egypt's top mediator, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, told Hamas to accept Egypt's truce proposal without amendments or Hamas will be considered responsible for Israel's continuing offensive in Gaza, the Palestinian official said.

On Tuesday, the Hamas delegation held a new round of talks with Suleiman and Egyptian officials. Later, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left on a previously unannounced trip to Riyadh to meet with his ally, Saudi King Abdullah, to discuss the cease-fire efforts, Egyptian officials said.

The talks come as Israeli ground troops pushed deeper into Gaza City in their 18-day offensive, in which more than 900 Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians. Israel says its assault aims to stop Hamas rocket attacks, saying it will stop only when there are guarantees the rocket fire and smuggling of weapons into Gaza will stop.

Hamas demands an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a halt to the offensive and the opening of border crossings into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, which Israel and Egypt have mostly kept sealed since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007.

How those crossings are to be opened, however, is a major sticking point. Egypt has called for international monitors at the borders to prevent smuggling, although not on the Egyptian side of the border, and there is also talk of such monitors being tasked with ensuring the cease-fire. Hamas has so far rejected any international monitors and demands a role in controlling the border crossings, which Egypt and Israel refuse.

Qatar has called for an emergency summit of Arab League heads of state on Friday in Doha to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Arab League head Amr Moussa said 13 members have agreed to attend. However, at least 14 members must agree for a summit to be called.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have rejected the idea, suggesting Arab leaders hold talks in Kuwait on Sunday ahead of a previously planned economic summit.

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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

Comments

[Mahi Joe]

I would think that if Egypt were serious about a peace deal they would police their own border and close those tunnels running from Egypt to Gaza which are military supply lines for Hamas.

[RationalRadioJack]

Egypt gets billions of bucks each year from the USA for no apparant reason other than to stick with Israel.....even if it means the massacre of hundreds of innocent men women and children.

The media ignores it. Obama ignores it.

Isreael has the arrogance to claim the the Palestine families are using their own children as "shields"......as if they love their children less than anyone else.

[hopeandvision]

When a mother sends her son on a suicide mission or when hamas terrorist Ryann sends his own son on a suicide mission in Ashdod. you have to wonder if they love their children.

[justice2009]

how pathetic so thats how you justify a massacre, is real is accountable, 60 years of occupation, the pales tinians deserve to live in peace.

[easarsfield]

Well, in case you don't follow current events, unfortunately Palestinians have sent women AND children as suicide bombers. If this is love, it seems a little mixed up.

[CubFanHere]

I follow current events and I would say that you must also ask yourself just how bad the living conditions must be in the Gaza and the West Bank that would drive women and children to become suicide bombers. You can't look past that either. This is not all about religious zealotry, it is also about people suffering in the occupied territories at the hands of the IDF for the past 35 years. People who have nothing to do with Hamas.

Israel is "defending" itself in territories that it illegally occupies according to International Law and according to everyone in the U.N. (resolution 242, adopted unanimously in 1967 which calls for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories) except for Israel and the U.S. A country cannot "defend" itself in territory that it illegally occupies in the first place. No one can condone what Hamas or Hezbollah is doing to the people of Israel, but the same can be said for what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. BOTH sides need to cease fire now!

[debrouillard]

Well,thats what happens when people have no hope. No hope which is exactly the case in Gaza for the last 35 years. When another nation determines when you drink water,wheter or not you eat,whether or not your kids go to school.

If that isnt enough to transform women and children in to mythrs then I dont know what is.

Do you think ,if a child in Gaza is growing up hoping that in the future they could earn their own livelihood,raise a family,they will become mathyrs?

Sure no. But when they know theres no life for them,then they dont even consider bringing kids in the world and they will fight for it.

You can take everything away from a man,but a man will never give away their freedom.

Its I rather be death ,than to live as another mans slave.

So long as Palestinians know no freedom,they shall continue to resist Isreal and the USA. And on those grounds,if at all theres a God,he will side with them.

I dont know from what part of the world you come from,but I would wish some other nation could do to your country what Isreal is doing now in Palestine,then ask you again how you feel about being oppressed.

[SpoonieLuv]

I hope that Egypt can get through to Hamas. Don't they realize that their own acts of terrorism give legitimacy to the even greater acts of terrorism carried out by Israel? What good is a free Palestine if it is nothing but a nation of martyrs?
The Israeli war machine is not one that the Palestinian people will be able to face down with strength of arms. Instead, they need to build up their own society in spite of the oppression which confronts them. If your oppressor denies you food, don't respond with rockets and mortars. Respond with plows, producing your own food. If your oppressor tries to keep you confined to a ghetto, make that ghetto a better place than the oppressor's land. Only then can you realize the dream of a Free Palestine.