(IsraelNN.com) Israel will open a "humanitarian corridor" to allow more aid into Gaza as the United Nations Security Council meets on truce proposals and Egypt floats its own initiative.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office announced the move Tuesday night following complaints of a growing crisis in strife-torn Gaza. Passage for more aid has been worked out with senior officers in the IDF, which has encircled major cities in Gaza and divided the region into three parts to prevent the transfer of weapons.

The Prime Minister's spokesman Mark Regev said "the transfer of people, foodstuffs and medicines" could begin as early as Wednesday and may be designed to push off ceasefire proposals based on the claim of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

World leaders are frantically trying to put together another Gaza truce as Israel gains support for it demands that weapons smuggling be stopped.

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting with United Nations leaders early Wednesday morning (early Tuesday evening EST) to try to work out a new ceasefire agreement that would put an end to fighting in Gaza and answer Israel's demand for a halt new weapons smuggling. However, Hamas still possesses thousands of rockets.

No immediate agreement is expected as Hamas leaders head to Egypt for consultations Wednesday.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted Tuesday evening that "we are not far from" a solution. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insisted that Israel has no intentions of making an agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization.

The current violence escalated two months ago after a June 19 ceasefire agreement was broken from the outset, with more than three dozen mortar and rocket attacks on southern Israel by Hamas and allied terrorists.

The discovery by Israeli intelligence personnel in early November of Hamas's plans to use a tunnel to kidnap Israeli soldiers prompted a counterterrorist action, which was met by massive fire on the Gaza Belt communities and Ashkelon.

Israel than launched its long-delayed counterterrorist campaign, dubbed Cast Lead, which was stepped up with a ground invasion of Gaza Saturday night.

Diplomats were scurrying in and out of Jerusalem this week and discovered that the Israeli government is in unanimous accord against another "one-sided truce," as United States President George W. Bush termed previous agreements.
 
Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair told reporters in Jerusalem, "What is being talked about is a credible plan to stop the smuggling," a move that would require international forces on the Egyptian border. Cairo previously has opposed the idea, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has claimed that his army has stopped the inflow of weapons and that Hamas is bringing in weapons by sea.
 
Mubarak's office announced Tuesday evening that it has proposed a ceasefire agreement to outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but no details were released.

One possibility is that international experts will work alongside Egyptian soldiers without interfering with Egyptian control of the area.

Hamas has used the nine-kilometer Philadelphi route straddling the Gaza-Egyptian border, to stockpile more than a hundred tons of explosives and thousands of rockets since Israel abandoned the area following the destruction of Jewish communities in the Gaza area more than three years ago.

TIME magazine, which since Cast Lead began has been reporting negatively about Israel's successes, reported that Israel does not want "a truce that falls short of their goal of defanging Hamas" and that Hamas is not ready "to run up the white flag."