Israel Targets International Deal on Gaza Truce

Israel hopes its military offensive in Gaza will end with an agreement imposed by the international community rather than a ceasefire renewed directly with the Hamas movement, according to reports in Israel today.

Israel aims to convince the international community to accept a deal under which Egypt would prevent smuggling into Gaza across its border, and border crossings into Gaza would operate under international supervision and in the presence of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is run by the West Bank-based Fatah movement, Hamas's bitter rival, the reports said.

Senior Israeli cabinet ministers will hold meetings today with a delegation from the European Union and later with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The Ha'aretz newspaper reported that the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the defence minister, Ehud Barak, yesterday decided against any ceasefire agreement with Hamas for fear it would give legitimacy to the Islamist movement.

Hamas said it would send a delegation to Cairo today at Egypt's invitation to talk about how to end the conflict in Gaza. Egypt mediated the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that began in June last year and broke down six months later.

"The international community will initiate the agreements and will impose it on Hamas," Ha'aretz quoted a senior political source in Jerusalem as saying. "The agreements will be with both the PA and Egypt and then if Hamas will not agree it will pay the price, mostly by even greater isolation."

It said Israel had three aims: it wanted Egypt to help stop smuggling into southern Gaza, and suggested the US might be involved in this, perhaps by sending combat engineers to reinforce the border; it wanted EU and Palestinian Authority officials deployed at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, as in the past; and it wanted the US, France and moderate Arab countries to support a UN security council agreement to grant Israel the right to respond to any Hamas violations of the deal.

A similar report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper described the possible deal as "a unilateral international arrangement" which, it said, might be forced on Hamas if it did not agree. It said Israel wanted the border crossings opened only under international supervision, and it suggested Israel wanted mention of calls to release Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured two and a half years ago who is still being held in Gaza.

The Ma'ariv newspaper said the deal would be a "deterred arrangement. Or, in other words, a broad international arrangement with everyone except Hamas."

Livni was quoted in the Makor Rishon-Hatzofe newspaper as saying: "This is not a matter for an isolated operation – and every arrangement should advance the interests of the State of Israel vis-a-vis Hamas. There is no intention here of creating a diplomatic product with Hamas. We need diplomatic products against Hamas, and any product that weakens it is positive in our eyes."

In recent days, Hamas has said its conditions for a ceasefire are an end to the Israeli attacks, an end to the Israeli economic blockade of the Gaza Strip and the reopening of the crossings out of Gaza. Before the ceasefire last June, Hamas agreed that PA representatives could operate the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, and said it would accept EU monitors, but insisted Israel should not have the right to close the crossing as in the past.