07/01/2009
The UN Security Council held a high-level emergency meeting late Tuesday as international pressure mounted for an end to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, the 11-day offensive in Gaza.
At the outset of the war, Washington had firmly refused any ceasefire in Gaza and blocked an Arab proposal to the UNSC to stop the war to give Tel Aviv more time to achieve something, anything.
On the eleventh day, when Israel committed a massacre in two UNRWA schools in Gaza killing more than 40 civilians, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice pushed for a ceasefire proposed by Egypt which would not result in return to situation on the ground before Israel launched its offensive.
"We have to defend ourselves," Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev said.
"We need urgently to conclude a ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security," Rice told the UN Security Council. "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 added.
"A ceasefire that returns to those circumstances is unacceptable and will not last," said Rice.
A senior US official said while the United States backed Mubarak's initiative, including his invitation to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to work together on a ceasefire, the United States would not back down on its basic principles of a ceasefire.
The Bush administration is pressing for a ceasefire that would include three elements: a halt to rocket attacks from Gaza, the opening of border crossings into the territory and an end to smuggling into the area through tunnels from Egypt.
"I am sure that it will be considered and you will find out whether it was accepted," Shalev told reporters. "But we take it very, very seriously," she said, while offering no guarantees that Israel would respond positively.
Under the proposal, Israel and Hamas would accept an immediate cease-fire for a limited period, which would allow safe passages to open for humanitarian aid to Gaza and give Egypt time to continue its efforts for a comprehensive and lasting cease-fire, Reuters reported.
Egypt would then invite both Israel and the Palestinian side to an urgent meeting to reach arrangements and guarantees to ensure that the current escalation does not recur. These talks will deal with all the issues at hand, including protecting the border, reopening crossing points and lifting the blockade, it said.
Finally, Egypt would invite the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian factions to respond to Egyptian efforts to achieve national reconciliation.
France and Turkey said they were willing to contribute to an international monitoring team for a ceasefire in Gaza.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France was awaiting Israel's response to the ceasefire proposal and "we harbor hope that it will be a positive one."
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan also said his country, which has been active in trying to end the violence in Gaza, would be prepared to contribute monitors. "If Turkey is asked to be in such an international monitoring team, we are going to be of course willing to be there," Babacan told reporters before the special UN session.
The Egyptian proposal received backing from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"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.
Many Arab speakers denounced the Security Council's failure to adopt a legally binding resolution to stop the Israeli offensive.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Israel's "aggression" had created a "hell" in Gaza, and the Security Council's "deafening silence" is damaging.
"This places a big question mark over the credibility of the Security Council and the entire system of international security," he said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev told The Associated Press, "We are holding off comments on that for the time being."
Comment
This proposal is Usraeli Make, designed to provide an exit for Israel, polish traitors Abbas and Mubarak as the savors of Gazans and put Hamas, between two bitter choices accepting the proposal (Return of Abass and Selling out Palestine, or refusing it and taking the blame for the Palestinian Blood. I think Egypt knows the real intentions of Usreal, insread of helping the Gazans, they closed the crossing thinking in doing so they may foil the ethnec clensing plan. In fact they are helping it, because Hamas shall never bow. In going to cairo Hamas is buying
time.
Mubarak tables ceasefire plan, demands stop of resistance rocket attacks first
[ 07/01/2009 - 11:00 AM ]
CAIRO, (PIC)-- Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday suggested in the presence of his French counterpart Nicloas Sarkozy a cease-fire initiative of three points and called on the Palestinian resistance to stop its rocket attacks first.
The initiative did not include a point about the cessation of Israeli aggression, but called for an immediate ceasefire for a limited period.
Mubarak's initiative stipulated that Israel and the Palestinian factions must agree on a limited ceasefire in order to provide safe corridors to deliver aid to Gaza people.
The second point of the initiative included a call on the Palestinian resistance not to repeat the current escalation and the third point underlined the need for resuming the Egyptian role in the file of the inter-Palestinian dialog.
For his part, Sarkozy said in Cairo that Mubarak demands a cessation of Palestinian rocket attacks first, confirming his keenness on Israel's security.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday said that the Egyptian president expressed to an EU delegation of foreign affairs ministers in Cairo his fears of any possible victory of Hamas over Israel in the fighting in Gaza.
According to the newspaper, the delegation briefed Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni on the meeting with Mubarak held on Monday in Cairo.
The newspaper pointed out that despite the fact that Hamas sent on Monday its delegates to hold discussions with Egyptian officials in Cairo about the current situation in Gaza, Mubarak told the EU delegation that Hamas must not be allowed to win this battle.
UNHCR: Egypt did not respond to our call to allow in fleeing Gazans
[ 07/01/2009 - 04:53 PM ]
GENEVA, (PIC)-- The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said that it had not received any response from the Egyptian authorities to its call on the neighboring countries of the Gaza Strip to allow the passage of civilians fleeing the war on Gaza.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva that the agency was not trying to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza, but it aims to ensure the application of an important principle represented in the right to flee from violence and have access to a safe haven.
The UNHCR had stressed on Monday the need to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza from all sides including Egypt and Israel.
A
Akef: The Egyptian-French initiative is an Israeli request
[ 08/01/2009 - 10:17 AM ]
CAIRO, (PIC)-- Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt Mohamed Akef on Wednesday said that the Egyptian-French ceasefire initiative is primarily an Israeli request in order to hide Israel's failure in eliminating the Palestinian resistance.
In a conference held by the Egyptian national forces, Akef announced that next Friday would be a day of popular anger in solidarity with the Palestinian people aimed to ask the Arab regimes especially in Egypt to adopt a responsible and serious position to protect the Palestinians against the Israeli killing machine.
In the same context, lawmaker Mustafa Bakri said that the Egyptian regime lives on an island isolated from the people who went out on the streets and expressed their rejection and condemnation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
For his part, Dr. Abdeljalil Mustafa, the coordinator of the Egyptian Kefaya movement, said that the Arab regimes especially in Egypt lost their Arab and Islamic identity when they abandoned the Palestinian people and left them alone facing the Israeli occupation.
The national forces in Egypt issued at the end of the conference a statement confirming that the resistance is a legitimate right approved by the international conventions and norms and declaring their support for the Palestinian people's right to use all means including armed struggle to restore their usurped rights.
The statement underlined that what is happening in Gaza is a clear and direct threat to the Arab national security, calling on the Arab regimes which have ties with Israel to tread in the steps of Venezuela and Mauritania and expel Israeli ambassadors.
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