Gaza Talks Build at U.N.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/middleeast/gaza-talks-build-at-un.html

Version 0 of 1.

With Egyptian-brokered talks to halt the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza frozen, discussions have intensified at the United Nations in recent days over a possible Security Council resolution that would end the fighting and attract broad-based support, including from the United States, Israel’s most important ally.

Diplomats said Friday that Germany, France and Britain had circulated what they described as elements that should be in that resolution, including international monitoring mechanisms.

They said these elements would prevent Hamas and other militant groups from rearming, give the Palestinian Authority control, relax the Israeli embargo, reopen all border crossings and expedite reconstruction. The elements may be added to an existing draft resolution on Gaza, proposed by Jordan, which has received little backing, or they may be developed into an alternative resolution. Either way, the diplomats said, the proposal would offer a workaround to the stalled discussions in Cairo.

“We hope that the Council will come together around a single draft resolution that can be adopted quickly,” Mark Lyall Grant, Britain’s United Nations ambassador and current president of the Security Council, told reporters Friday in response to questions about the Gaza-related discussions of recent days. He declined to provide details but said a single text may be ready “in the next few days.”

If the United States, which has historically vetoed Security Council actions deemed harmful to Israel’s security, were to support such a resolution, Israel may be pressed to accept it.

A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the diplomacy is delicate, confirmed that “we are in consultation with other Council members on developing elements of a resolution.” The official said the primary American objective was Israeli-Palestinian agreement on lasting measures to halt the Gaza violence, and that “any actions need to be evaluated on the basis of whether they would advance that goal.”