International pressure builds for Israel to halt Gaza attack

Proposal for a cease-fire being weighed

UNITED NATIONS - Foreign ministers from UN Security Council members and Arab states piled pressure on Israel yesterday to end its 11-day attack on the Gaza Strip as the number of civilian deaths there continued to mount.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, presiding over a special Security Council meeting on the Gaza crisis, called for an immediate cease-fire that would also ensure an end to Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel and the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza for Hamas militants.

He said France expected Israel's response today to a cease-fire proposal announced by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and "we harbor hope that it will be a positive one," Kouchner said.

Israel's UN envoy said late last evening that the Israelis were taking Egypt's proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza "very seriously" but left open whether or not Israel would accept it.

"I am sure that it will be considered and you will find out whether it was accepted," Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev told reporters. "But we take it very, very seriously."

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said Hamas leaders, who want an end to Israel's blockade of the coastal enclave, had been briefed in Egypt on the proposals by Mubarak and were debating them internally.

The Mubarak announcement received explicit backing from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rice told the Security Council meeting that the United States understood the growing desire for a cease-fire. "In this regard, we are pleased by, and wish to commend, the statement of the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative," she said.

But Rice added that any solution must address Israel's security.

"There must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities. It has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas, and it must be a solution that finds a way to open (border) crossings so that Palestinians in Gaza can have a normal life," she said.

Abbas' Fatah movement was ousted from Gaza in 2007 when Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, seized control of the enclave. Gaza has some 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom are dependent on some form of humanitarian aid.

Rice said it was crucial for Abbas' Palestinian Authority to reestablish its control over Gaza.

"Our goal must be the stabilization and normalization of life in Gaza," she said.

Libya has circulated several versions of a draft resolution that calls for a truce and criticizes Israel. Western diplomats said the text had little chance of passing.

Shalev, in her speech to the council earlier, made no reference to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, and was dismissive of the idea that the council was obligated to weigh in on the conflict. "The credibility of this council is measured not by the pieces of paper it issues, but by the values it upholds," she said.

Diplomats said negotiations in New York on a cease-fire resolution may have been overtaken by Mubarak's proposal, which calls for a limited initial truce to allow aid into Gaza and give time for Egypt to broker a permanent ceasefire.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said Israel will set up a "humanitarian corridor" for the Gaza Strip, after aid agencies complained of a mounting crisis for the enclave's 1.5 million Palestinians.

Israeli ground forces have bisected the territory and encircled major populated areas.

Olmert's office said in a statement that the corridor had been recommended by Israel's military chiefs and would entail granting periodic access to various areas of the strip to allow Palestinians to stock up on vital goods.

An Olmert spokesman, Mark Regev, described the measure as a "special status to allow the transfer of people, foodstuffs and medicines" and said it could be implemented on Wednesday.

At the United Nations, Abbas criticized Israel for ignoring calls from around the globe for an end to its military campaign in Gaza - and for the large number of civilian deaths it has caused.

"The Israeli machine of destruction continues to kill, to commit the most heinous of possible crimes despite international unanimity, an unprecedented unanimity in calling for an end of this massacre against innocent civilians that do not deserve such brutality," Abbas said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.