(Repeats story published late on Sunday)
By Jason Hovet
PRAGUE, Jan 4 (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy
chiefs on Sunday began a mission to seek a ceasefire in the Gaza
Strip but acknowledged they faced a difficult task.
"It is absolutely necessary that violence has to stop," EU
External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told
reporters in Prague before flying to Egypt as part of an EU
delegation led by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg,
whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.
Schwarzenberg acknowledged that it would be very tough for
the mission to achieve success.
"It is clear the situation is very bad," Schwarzenberg said
at a joint news conference with Ferrero-Waldner.
"We will try to achieve any success we can but we all
realise this is very difficult. We will try to open all ways for
humanitarian aid to be able to access to Gaza and we will try to
discuss what conditions should be set to enable a ceasefire."
Israeli forces began a ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday
after eight days of air attacks failed to stop rockets being
fired into Israel from the coastal Palestinian territory, ruled
by the Islamist movement Hamas.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the Israeli
ground invasion "an escalation".
"This is a very dangerous moment. This is a moment where all
the hopes of the peace process are falling apart in the action
that's being taken. So what we need is an immediate ceasefire,"
he said in a BBC radio interview.
The EU mission will also include the bloc's foreign policy
chief, Javier Solana, and the foreign ministers of France and
Sweden, who are due to meet the leaders of Israel, the
Palestinian Authority and Jordan during the three-day trip.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country handed over
the EU presidency to the Czech Republic on Jan. 1, planned a
separate trip. He will meet the EU mission in Ramallah, the West
Bank seat of the Palestinian Authority, on Monday.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, envoy for powers
sponsoring Middle East peace talks, was due to meet Israeli
Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday.
The Czech EU presidency seemed to suggest there was a
division in the EU ranks on Saturday when a spokesman called the
Israeli land assault "defensive, not offensive".
But Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg said on Sunday this had
been a misunderstanding [].
The Czechs said in a statement that even a state's right for
self-defence did not justify actions largely affecting
civilians, and called for humanitarian aid and ceasefire.
Ferrero-Waldner said the EU would make another 3 million
euros available for humanitarian aid.
Asked what the EU delegation could achieve, Solana told BBC
radio: "We are going to talk to everybody, with both sides, the
Arab countries, the United Nations."
He said there was also the possibility of the EU deploying
people on the ground.
"We have deployed already in Rafah in the past. We are ready
to go back. And thirdly, help on the humanitarian aspects."
(Writing by Jan Lopatka; Additional reporting by Adrian Croft
in London; Editing by Giles Elgood)
