Italian Premier Romano Prodi and French President Jacques Chirac called for European action in the Gaza Strip during an Italo-French summit on Friday.
The two leaders said at a press conference on the sidelines of the one-day summit that the situation in the Palestinian-administered Gaza Strip was "dramatic".
They said they were in favour of a "joint European initiative" to help stabilise the region.
The Middle East conflict topped the agenda of the talks between Prodi and Chirac who unexpectedly announced last week that they were working on a Middle East plan together with Spanish leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Although full details about the Italo-French-Spanish plan have not been made public, it is known to call for a total ceasefire and advance the possibility of sending forces to the region to ensure a truce is maintained.
The initiative was at the centre of a Spanish-French summit on November 16 and subsequent talks between Prodi and Egyptian government leaders, and will be put to European leaders at an EU summit next month.
Prodi and Chirac said they hoped it would lead to "concrete action" and that it would help negotiations on the formation of a unity government between Hamas, the militant movement heading the elected Palestinian government, and the rival Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinians hope sanctions imposed on the Hamas government over its refusal to recognise Israel will be lifted if a unity government is formed.
Prodi and Chirac stressed that a unity government was an important step for relaunching peace talks with Israel.
They also expressed support for Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, whose government has been rocked by the Tuesday assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is pro-Syrian, is demanding a bigger say in government and is planning protests next week against Siniora's administration.
Prodi, who came to power seven months ago, said he still favoured the idea of posting peace monitors along Lebanon's border with Syria. "This idea hasn't been dropped, even though there has not been a full response from Syria," he said.
"For Italy, this remains one of the proposals which could boost Lebanon's security," he said.
Prodi's centre-left government, which has taken a strong lead in European Middle East policy, has already sent troops to Lebanon, providing the biggest peacekeeping contingent for the United Nations force deployed in the south of the country following the July-August conflict with Israel.
Chirac said France wanted to "ensure Lebanon's independence and stability" but was not fully convinced by the idea of sending peace monitors to the Syrian border.
EU-TURKEY STALEMATE AND HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINK DISCUSSED.
Prodi and Chirac also discussed the entry talks between the EU and Turkey, which are threatened by Turkey's refusal to open its ports to EU member Cyprus.
Prodi, a former European Commission chief, said that "we must find a balanced solution" ahead of the mid-December EU summit so that Turkey entry negotiations could move forward.
Chirac echoed Prodi's comment, stressing that Italy and France shared the "same position" on EU enlargement.
He also said that France viewed Italy as a closer ally under Prodi's leadership.
French-Italian relations cooled somewhat under the previous, American-oriented government of Silvio Berlusconi.
Prodi has put Italy back on a more pro-European foreign policy line, noted by Chirac who said "things have changed".
He hailed the summit as representing the chance to "give a fresh boost to our cooperation". In other comments, Prodi said transport ministers attending the summit had discussed plans to build a high-speed rail link linking the northern Italian city of Turin to the French city of Lyon - a project which has been jeopardised by residential protests in the Italian Alps.
Prodi said the project would go ahead, defending it as "fundamental to our economy", but "with the maximum amount of dialogue possible".
He did not say how the government would solve the controversy over the part of the project which currently entails building a 53-kilometre tunnel through the Susa Valley in the Western Italian Alps.
Protesters say the link will create an environmental disaster and destroy the area's natural beauty. They also say they fear for their health given that the mountains to be drilled through are suspected to contain uranium and asbestos.
Supporters of the project, including the EC, say the line will actually reduce pollution by cutting the amount of goods transported by road.
They highlight the economic benefits of the link, which will form part of a pan-European transport system connecting Western and Eastern Europe with a new freight line stretching from Kiev in Ukraine to Barcelona in Spain.
Politicians on both sides of the political divide say it is vital that Italy remain part of this rail system.
