January 19th, 2009:

via Leaders race to consolidate Mideast truce – Mideast/N. Africa – msnbc.com.

updated 11:51 a.m. PT, Sun., Jan. 18, 2009

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – As the warring sides agreed to a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, European and Arab leaders raced Sunday to lay groundwork for a longer-term agreement to prevent new fighting.

Delivering humanitarian aid to rebuild the devastated Palestinian enclave emerged as a key goal from the summit in Egypt, along with choking off weapons smuggling into Gaza across Egypt’s border and at sea — perhaps with an international naval force.

But the 1 1/2-hour gathering failed to deliver specifics on international monitors to prevent weapons smuggling. Israel wants monitors, but Egypt has refused to have them on its side of the border.

The subtitle of the article reads Delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza a key goal from the summit in Egypt. Actually the article is more about Israel’s desires of disarmament than the deliverance of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The real key goal and focus of the article, as reported by the AP, is to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza.

Leave it to the AP to point out the summit’s failings. World leaders gather to begin the process of negotiation and the Associated Press reports back that the gathering failed to deliver specifics, and Egypt refused to have monitors on their side of the border. Instead of hailing this as a new beginning to a lasting peace, the AP takes a too cautious note.

Gaza blockade at Erez border crossing

The article goes on to talk stopping the smuggling of arms into Gaza, a contentious point with Israel. The AP author stays on this point as if the whole negotiation was an effort to curb the Palestinian smuggling rather than an equal parlance for both sides. British Prime Minister Brown offers more humanitarian aid which is wonderful, but little is mentions by the AP on what they decided to do about the blockade of Gaza and smothering of aid. France, Germany, Britain, and Italy all offered manpower and technology to help stem the smuggling of arms, but Britain was the most specific with its offer of humanitarian aid.

Increase in humanitarian aid
Britain announced it was tripling its humanitarian aid to Gaza. The government said in a statement the additional 20 million pounds, or about $29 million, would go toward rebuilding damaged homes and helping those injured in the violence.

The United Nations chief said the world body would send a team to assess humanitarian needs.

There were these two short paragraphs under the heading of Increase in humanitarian aid then under the same heading  the bulk of the section was concerned with arms trafficking, not humanitarian aid. The focus of the section is smuggling and how to stop it with little or no commentary on the grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by Israel’s blockade. Here is the rest of the section:

Egypt has firmly rejected any deployment of international monitoring forces on its side of the Gaza border, insisting its forces can police the frontier for weapons smugglers. President Hosni Mubarak repeated that stand Sunday, while welcoming help with equipment and technology.

Several European leaders spoke of sending forces to patrol from the sea instead.

“We must put an end to the arms traffic,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. “Several of our countries have proposed … to make available to Israel and Egypt all the technical, diplomatic and military — notably naval — means to help stop weapons smuggling into Gaza.”

France, Germany and Britain delivered a joint letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mubarak on Saturday formally offering their help in stopping arms trafficking, said a European diplomat involved in the talks.

And finally, the one thing the AP reporter failed to mention at all was the glaring absence of a key world power. The AP totally forgot to mention that the United States did not attend the summit. Bush is leaving though and things will change. Elections have consequences.

The last section of the article should have been the first:

Hundreds of Palestinians killed

The three weeks of fighting killed more than 1,250 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, according to Palestinian officials. Thirteen Israelis died during the offensive, including four killed by rocket fire.

Israel announced later Sunday that it had begun to pull its troops out of Gaza.

[French President] Sarkozy said a full withdrawal was crucial. “There is no other solution to achieve peace,” he said.

How right he is.