Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday announced a proposal for an immediate truce in Gaza, which calls for the opening of safe corridors for relief supplies into Gaza, and invites Israelis and Palestinians to meet urgently to discuss the prevention of a resumption of violence.
The proposal, endorsed promptly by the United Nations and the United States, while winning immediate support from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, seems to bring a ray of hope that diplomacy would be successful in bringing about a truce in the Gaza Strip.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the initiative Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while offering U.S. support to the initiative at the Security Council meeting Tuesday, added that any peace plan "has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas."
A response from Israel is still awaited on the proposal.
If the Egyptian-French proposal signifies a move closer to a truce in Gaza, then how far is the proposal from finally bringing it about?
Unparallel bottom lines
The Egyptian proposal contains the following points: firstly, Israel and the Palestinian factions should accept an immediate truce for a limited period, during which time safe corridors for relief supplies into Gaza would be opened.
The initiative then invites Israelis and Palestinians to meet to discuss how to avoid a resumption of fighting, including securing the borders and lifting the blockade of Gaza, which Israel says rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas have forced it to impose.
Egypt would also invite the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian factions to respond to its efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation, which Cairo has failed to broker so far.
However, the proposal seems to be some distance away from what Israel has demanded in return for a ceasefire.
"We will hold our fire under two conditions: one is an end to the arms smuggling from Sinai (Egypt) into Gaza, and the other is the cessation of all terror activity, not just the rocket fire," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday.
Israel has also asked for an international border crossing with Gaza and a halt to weapons supplies to Hamas through tunnels along the border with Egypt.