Maintain ceasefire call - Miliband

29 December 2008 06:51pm

EU foreign ministers meeting for an emergency summit on the Gaza crisis must maintain Europe's call for a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Mr Miliband said the EU should also press for "decent" humanitarian standards to be restored in Gaza, where thousands of people are suffering from shortages of food, fuel and medicines after four days of Israeli air strikes.

Israel said it was ready for "long weeks of action" to stamp out missile attacks on its territory by the Hamas group which controls the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the air strikes, which have killed more than 370 people including at least 64 civilians, according to UN figures, were the "first of several stages" of military action, while defence minister Ehud Barak promised a "war to the bitter end" to defeat Hamas.

But Mr Miliband said that Hamas would only be defeated by a political solution which delivered a two-state solution to the Middle East peace process.

The Foreign Secretary told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "Of course, Israel is a democratic country and Hamas is a terrorist organisation, but this is about how we secure the security of Israel as well as justice for the Palestinian people. I believe you can defeat Hamas but you have to defeat them politically and the way to defeat them politically is to deliver on the two-state solution that in the end is the only hope for the Middle East."

The EU and United Nations have both called for an end to the violence, while the US has so far held back from calling on Israel to cease hostilities. The White House has instead stressed the need for Hamas to stop firing rockets and to return to the ceasefire it was observing until a few weeks ago.

Mr Miliband said the EU ministers should "maintain the international calls for a ceasefire" on both sides. "These are louder and louder calls and they are increasingly unanimous," he said.

"We have to put content on those calls that does deal with the smuggling of arms that Israel are concerned about, but also deals with the (border) crossings and the delivery of humanitarian aid."

And he added: "We have got to address this humanitarian question, because the scale of the need is huge, not just for food and medicine but also for fuel. I think there is a very important role for the EU, not just as a funder but also as a spokesman for decent standards".

© The Press Association