European leaders are scrambling to find a way to halt the escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas as the IDF deepens its Operation Cast Lead against the guerrilla organization in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Monday during an interview on Channel 2 television that Hamas has been hit hard in Operation Cast Lead and knows it will pay a price for attacking Israel.
Tens of thousands of reservists activated with emergency orders are now operating in Gaza, signaling the possible start of the third stage of the military operation. During the past week the reservists sharpened their skills in Arab village mock-ups, where they reviewed past training, upgraded their techniques and acquired new knowledge of weapons and combat methods in preparation for operations in Gaza.
Livni said that the main objective now is to stop the arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza. Although Israel would be the best party to take control of the Philadelphi corridor, she said, other factors may put a different force in charge of the area.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said flatly "There need to be European observers," including military observers, "to testify to the maintained ceasefire" when a truce is finally arranged. He acknowledged in the interview on Europe-1 radio, however, that "neither the Egyptians nor the Israelis want international observers on their territory for the moment."
Kouchner also said that he spoke with Iranian officials about the Gaza situation on Sunday in hopes they would persuade the terrorist organization to halt its rocket attacks on Israel. "We are talking to everyone," he said. "We have intermediaries… who allow us to talk to Hamas."
Iran, for its part, has been pressuring Hamas not to accept an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire with Israel, according to an Egyptian official quoted by The Jerusalem Post newspaper. According to the report, two senior Iranian officials met last week with Damascus-based Hamas leaders to warn them against accepting any peace deals with Israel.
Hamas representatives met Monday in Cairo with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and his staff to discuss proposals for ending the conflict. However, Hamas reportedly rejected Egypt's ceasefire overtures.
Gilad Conducting Diplomatic War in Egypt
Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security chief Amos Gilad has also been busy in negotiations with Egyptian officials, although he does not plan to arrive in Cairo until at least Tuesday – after Hamas representatives have left Egypt..
"Hamas wants to stop the Israeli war machine. They need to save what they have, but unlike in the tahadiyeh (temporary truce, or lull –ed.) they know they're not in a position of power," Gilad told a reporter from the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot.
"As far as we are concerned, the only thing that matters is Israel's objectives – peace in the south and preventing Hamas from regaining its strength. Preventing arms smuggling through the Philadelphi Route is only one of the issues we are discussing," Gilad said. "This may be solved with the technological assistance of the Americans and Germans, since the Egyptians won't hear of having an international force deployed in their territory.
"As far as the smugglings are concerned, we can count on Egypt more than we did before… They have undergone a conceptual change," he said. "After Hamas refused to appear at the Cairo talks (with rival Palestinian Authority faction Fatah) Egypt began to understand that it is dealing with an enemy which could potentially join forces with their own enemies, such as the Muslim Brotherhood."
Gilad is under no illusions, however, that the bond with Egypt is anything other than a relationship of convenience: "Egypt is a very important Middle East power. I don't call this an agreement. I call it an alliance of circumstance," he said.