Hollande: Let EU keep Gaza truce

Move offers way back for Hamas rival, French leader says

Israeli police forensic experts work at the scene where a body was found Thursday in a Jerusalem forest.
Israeli police forensic experts work at the scene where a body was found Thursday in a Jerusalem forest.

JERUSALEM -- French President Francois Hollande called Thursday for Europe to enforce a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, telling international diplomats that Europe can help oversee the destruction of tunnels used by Hamas militants and monitor the territory's border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

"It is necessary to move toward an end to the blockade and a demilitarization of the territory," he said, indicating that international supervision could help pave the way for a return of Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority, to Gaza.

President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the authority, is eager to regain a foothold in Gaza, seven years after Hamas violently overran the territory.

With the international community shunning Hamas as a terrorist group, Abbas likely would be given the task to operate Gaza's borders and oversee internationally funded reconstruction efforts.

The French proposal, Hollande said, would "finally give the Palestinian Authority the means to respond to the humanitarian crisis and to begin reconstruction."

Earlier this month, while the fighting was still raging, the European Union expressed its readiness to contribute to a "sustainable solution" for Gaza, offering help in postwar reconstruction and monitoring efforts.

Among other things, it mentioned the possible revival of an operation that helped operate Gaza's volatile border crossing with Egypt.

Israel and Hamas militants battled for 50 days this summer before reaching a truce Tuesday. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of civilians.

Seventy people died on the Israeli side, including six civilians. An estimated 100,000 Gazans have been left homeless, and reconstruction is expected to take years.

The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the warfare -- the third round of heavy fighting between the two sides since Hamas came to power in 2007 -- but left key matters unresolved.

While Israel agreed to loosen a longstanding blockade to allow humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials into Gaza, many of the border restrictions will remain in place.

Hamas, meanwhile, rejected Israel's demands that it disarm.

These deeper issues are to be addressed in indirect talks in Egypt next month.

Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said his country is ready to consider any proposal but must be convinced that monitoring will work.

Israel's main concern, he said, is to prevent Hamas from smuggling more weapons through reopened border crossings.

Europe's previous border-monitoring operation halted its operations after Hamas overran Gaza in 2007.

"We're not saying no to anything. But it has to be something that's workable," Hirschson said.

Complicating matters is that the European Union, like Israel and the U.S., considers Hamas a terrorist group and has no direct contact with the organization.

At the minimum, an international presence in Gaza would require Hamas to allow Abbas' forces to help operate the border crossings -- something it has expressed a willingness to do.

But it would also step up pressure on Hamas to give up its military capabilities, such as the network of tunnels used to smuggle weapons and stage attacks on Israel.

In Gaza, Hamad al-Rakeb, a Hamas spokesman, described Hollande's proposal as "mixing poison in the honey."

Riyad Mansour, Abbas' ambassador to the United Nations, on Thursday welcomed the idea of international monitors as a "useful deterrent" to more fighting. He acknowledged, however, that disarming Hamas is "not realistic."

Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Thursday that international aid must be conditioned on Hamas disarming.

During the war, Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel.

"They want to rehabilitate Gaza; they need to understand that they will have to disarm. Residents of the south cannot continue to live this way," Lapid said.

Donor nations are to meet in October for a conference on funding reconstruction of Gaza, with the expectation that hundreds of millions of dollars in aid will be channeled through Abbas.

Meanwhile, Israeli police said Thursday that "there is a strong possibility" they have found the body of an American seminary student who disappeared while hiking in Jerusalem last week.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the body was found in the same area where Aharon Sofer disappeared. Sofer, 23, of Lakewood, N.J., had been hiking with a friend in a hilly, forested area on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Rosenfeld said a forensics team was still trying to confirm the identification. He would not elaborate or say whether there were any signs of foul play.

Information for this article was contributed by Lori Hinnant, Cara Anna, Ibrahim Barzak, Ian Deitch and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/29/2014

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