David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, will join Arab foreign ministers and the President of the Palestinian Authority tomorrow for a UN summit on the war in Gaza.

Arab nations are pushing for the UN Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire and the deployment on an international force in Gaza to protect civilians and secure the truce.

“What we need is agreement on an international force with have a dual purpose: providing our people with protection and to guarantee the sustainability of the ceasefire,” said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative at the UN.

“Once we agree on the principle of the force, we need to agree very shortly afterward on the modalities and the composition of the force,” he said.

A delegation of Arab foreign ministers pressed for UN action in a series of meetings in New York with Security Council members and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

The prospects of agreement on a resolution appeared dim last night, however, in the face of continued US resistance.

A State Department said the United States was pursuing a ceasefire that would end Hamas rocket fire, reopen border crossings and cut off smugglign through tunnels from Egypt.

Riad Malki, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, voiced disappointment over Barack Obama’s failure to speak out on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, even though he made a statement on the recent attacks in Mumbai, India.

“We expected him really to be open and responsive to the situation in Gaza,” Mr Malki told reporters at UN headquarters. “And still ... we expect him to make a strong statement regarding this as soon as possible.” President Sarkozy of France was at the front of a confused international effort to forge a cease-fire in the Gaza strip yesterday, but his shuttle diplomacy appeared to have done little to sway both sides’ intent to fight on.

Crossing paths with the European Union’s official trouble-shooters, Mr Sarkozy took the outline of a peace plan to President Mubarak of Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and Ehud Olmert, the caretaker Israeli Prime Minister.

At a news conference, Mr Sarkozy said Europe wanted a ceasefire as soon as possible. “The guns must fall silent, there must be a humanitarian truce,” he said.

Tomorrow Mr Sarkozy aims to play what he considers to be his “Syrian card”, visiting Damascus to press President al-Assad to persuade Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel and accept a new ceasefire. Damascus has good relations with hardline members of the Palestinian movement.

Mr Sarkozy believes that he is well-placed to mediate because he opened links with Damascus last year, ending Western ostracism of the Assad regime, and he also enjoys more trust from Israel than previous French leaders. Mr Sarkozy has condemned the Israeli offensive as dangerous, but he said yesterday that “Hamas carries heavy resonsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians of Gaza”.

In French eyes, European disarray was demonstrated by the refusal of Czech leaders, who have just succeeded France in the rotating presidency of the Union, to join Mr Sarkozy on his freelance mission.

Instead, Prague dispatched a group of EU ministers and officials under Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech Foreign Minister, for separate talks. The Czechs earlier caused confusion by calling the Israeli campaign defensive and then retracting the expression.

Also in the West Bank yesterday was Tony Blair, the envoy for the four world powers known as the Quartet (Russia, the USA, the EU and the UN). “We are doing everything we possibly can to bring about an end to a situation of immense suffering and deprivation,” Mr Blair said after meeting Mr Abbas.

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