CAIRO, Jan 6: A Hamas delegation visited Cairo on Tuesday to discuss an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire with Israel, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy said a deal to end Israel’s offensive in Gaza was “not far” away.

In Egypt, the closed-door meeting with the Palestinian delegation, headed by Emad Al Alami and Mohammed Nasr from Syrian-based leadership of Hamas, was the first such contact since fighting began, but hopes of a truce appear dim.

The Hamas leaders met intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s focalperson on Israel, the official MENA news agency reported, but gave scant details.

“They discussed ways of containing Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip,” MENA said. Mr Suleiman is reported to have told Hamas “about Egyptian efforts and contacts to end the aggression and heard what Hamas had to say about the crisis”.

Before leaving Damascus, Mr Nasr said: “Our position is clear: end the aggression, withdraw (Israeli forces) from Gaza, open the crossing points, especially Rafah, with a total lifting of the blockade.”

Mussa Abu Marzuq, the Damascus-based deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, said that Egypt might “present to visiting Hamas members an official Egyptian or European ceasefire initiative” but that Hamas had not yet received any such offer.

“We asked for a Hamas delegation with capability and authority to be sent to examine how a ceasefire can be achieved,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit was quoted as saying in the state-owned Al Ahram daily.

The paper said the delegation would also examine an Egyptian proposal for Hamas to reconcile with the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

In South Lebanon, Mr Sarkozy told reporters during a visit to French UN peacekeepers: “I’m convinced that there are solutions. We are not far from that. What is needed is simply for one of the players to start for things to go in the right direction.”

Mr Sarkozy said he was returning to Sharm El Sheikh to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss a possible deal. During his visit to Damascus, Mr Sarkozy urged Syria to put pressure on Hamas to support a compromise.

After talks with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, he said: “President Assad can play a role. He must convince Hamas to make the choice of reason, of peace and reconciliation.”

President Assad said any initiative must stop “Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and lift the blockade of the besieged territory”.

In Jerusalem, Mr Sarkozy emphasised the need to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, after meeting Israeli officials.

“I hope that today European non-governmental organisations will enter Gaza, that there will be humanitarian corridors and medicine (deliveries),” he said.

Middle East peace Quartet envoy Tony Blair said in Jerusalem that Mr Sarkozy, the European Union and the United States all agreed that new anti-smuggling measures would be needed to clinch a ceasefire.

Stopping the supply of arms and money through the tunnels is “the one basis on which you can bring a quick halt to this, otherwise I think we’re into a more protracted campaign,” Mr Blair told BBC radio.

However, MENA quoted Abul Gheit as saying: “Whoever says that the tunnels are used to smuggle weapons and ammunition is clueless because everything comes to them by sea.” In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reiterated that the condition for an immediate ceasefire was that it should be “durable, sustainable and not time-limited”.

In the Israeli town of Sderot, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a radio interview: “The result of this operation must be, first and foremost, the end of smuggling of ammunition … into Gaza, to prevent murderous organisations from being able to fire.”

Also in Cairo, the Arab League accused the US of blocking a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.

Arab foreign ministers who went to the UN’s New York headquarters to lobby for a resolution are “facing difficulties and obstacles because of the US supportive stance toward Israel,” said Mohammed Subaih, Arab League deputy secretary-general for Palestinian affairs.

“(The US) wants more blood and wants to block a decision by the Security Council so Israel can continue its aggression and perform a cleansing operation” against Hamas, he said.—Agencies