Cautious welcome for peace plan from both Israelis and Hamas

Ian Black, Middle East editor Israel and Hamas yesterday both "welcomed" - but neither accepted - an Egyptian-French plan to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

For the first time the US urged Israel to say yes to the ceasefire call, with Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, pressing the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, by telephone as the UN security council debated action to end the 12-day crisis.

A strongly worded UN statement, brokered by Britain, France and the US, was expected to be agreed last night after the council failed to make enough progress to agree a resolution. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said in New York that he had seen "the first glimmerings of the possibility of a ceasefire", adding: "It's far too early to say we can get a breakthrough."

Still, closer US attention seemed to boost the chances of progress. "Our goal must be the stabilisation and normalisation of life in Gaza," said Rice. But any ceasefire "has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas".

Barack Obama, the president-elect, broke his silence on the Gaza fighting to pledge that he would "engage immediately" with the Middle East when he takes office on 20 January.

Cautious optimism about the prospects for a peace deal was dented earlier when Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, was forced to retract an earlier claim that Israel and the Palestinians were both ready to sign up to the initiative. Israeli officials said Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was seeking an initial 48-hour ceasefire, during which the finishing touches would be put to the plan. Israel said it accepted the "principles" of the plan but opposed a preliminary truce and wanted all the details of an agreement completed first.

Khaled Meshaal, the Islamist movement's Damascus-based political leader, told a Russian envoy that Hamas rejected "capitulatory" conditions. Ahmed Yusuf, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free website: "Hamas welcomes the Egyptian-French initiative. We recognise that it contains many positive elements but also elements that need more careful consideration." Osama Hamdan, its representative in Lebanon, said the movement would not accept any initiative that did not include the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and the opening of all border crossings. "Any proposal that does not include these points is unacceptable and no one should bother by presenting such proposals," he told al-Jazeera TV.

For the moment the only Israeli concession has been to allow the delivery of aid for Palestinians - beginning yesterday with a three-hour halt to bombing. Fighting resumed soon afterwards.

Agreeing humanitarian access and a truce is the first stage. But the second and far more complex element of any deal will be agreement to police Gaza's southern border to prevent Hamas smuggling in weapons once the fighting is over. The Egyptian-French text makes no reference to this issue. But a senior Israeli defence ministry official is to attend security talks in Cairo today.

Diplomats following the negotiating process warned last night that the first part cannot work without the second for any length of time because a truce and humanitarian access do not address any of the fundamental concerns that led Israel to launch its Operation Cast Lead offensive on 27 December. Israel insists the key to ending the crisis is permanent measures to monitor and destroy tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

Elements of the Egyptian-French plan, and continuing discussions at the UN in New York, include an international presence on the Egyptian side of the border, the so-called "Philadelphi corridor". This "specialised force" may comprise US combat engineers (which Israel would favour) as well as Turkish troops (popular with Arab and Muslim opinion). The EU has also pledged technical and perhaps financial assistance.

Various sources have reported that there would also be a naval presence to patrol the Gaza shoreline, perhaps commanded by the French. A small naval force was part of the arrangements for a ceasefire in Lebanon at the end of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Western officials say any border security arrangement would require US technical aid to Egypt as well as changes to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979 to change military dispositions in Sinai. All of this will require substantial negotiations.

Crucially, missing from the plan so far is an agreed mechanism for Israel to lift the Gaza blockade, Hamas's principal demand, though it does mention reopening border crossings. Diplomats said there was hard bargaining over whether the UN presidential statement should use the phrase "full and permanent" with respect to the crossings.

Underlining the difficulties ahead, Israel's security cabinet said it did not accept Mubarak's statement that Egypt would open a dialogue with Hamas and that all crossing points would be opened as part of a peace deal.

Deep divisions over the Gaza fighting were displayed at the UN, where Iranian delegate Ali Habib read a statement accusing Israel of "war crimes, aggression, occupation and state terrorism [and] some of the most heinous examples of crimes against humanity".

On Tuesday the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, called Iran a "coward's coward" that funds Hamas and uses it to fight a proxy war with Israel. The Iranian statement dismissed the Israeli accusations as "despicable".