Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (pictured left) invited Israel for an urgent meeting to discuss security on the Egypt-Gaza border, following talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured right). -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHARM EL-SHEIKH - EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday invited Israel for an urgent meeting to discuss security on the Egypt-Gaza border, following talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Egypt 'invites the Israelis and Palestinians for an urgent meeting to reach arrangements and guarantees that would not allow the repeat of the current escalation,' Mr Mubarak said.
Such guarantees would include 'securing the borders and... opening of the border crossings and lifting the siege,' he said.
Mr Mubarak also said he proposed an immediate ceasefire that would allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian-Israeli talks.
The summit came on Day 11 of an massive Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip aimed at ending the firing by Palestinian militants of rockets which Israel says enter Gaza via tunnels from Egypt.
Mr Sarkozy said that Israeli side was invited 'to come and discuss the matter of border security, without delay, and perhaps in the hours to come.'
Mr Sarkozy, who on Monday began a whirlwind tour of the region aimed at brokering a truce in Gaza, said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about Mr Mubarak's initiative and that 'he will react soon.'
'I have very precise elements that allow me to say that an Israeli delegation will meet an Egyptian delegation to discuss the matter of security,' Mr Sarkozy said.
With the UN Security Council due to meet on the Gaza crisis, Mr Sarkozy said a resolution on Gaza would 'complicate' the task of achieving peace.
'France, as president of the UN Security Council, asks that as long as discussions are taking place between the concerned parties we do not hurry to obtain a resolution that would complicate the task,' he said.
'I hope that the reaction of the Israeli authorities will allow to envisage an end to the operation they've undertaken in Gaza, meaning not simply a ceasefire but a withdrawal,' Mr Sarkozy said.
'This is not a return to the status quo ante because the Egyptians are ready to work on security on the border, because pressure is applied for there to be no more rockets fired from Gaza,' he added.
Mr Olmert earlier said that 'terrorist' rocket attacks and weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza must end before Israel halts its offensive on the Palestinian territory.
'Let the terrorist acts stop, halt the arms smuggling from (Egyptian) Sinai into Gaza, and the Israeli combat will stop,' Mr Olmert said on a visit to Sderot, one of the towns in southern Israel that have been hit by rockets from Gaza.
Israel's onslaught on the enclave has killed more than 660 Palestinians.
Rockets fired by Hamas have killed four people inside Israel.
Six Israeli soldiers have died in friendly fire accidents and clashes with Gaza militants since ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday. -- AFP
