THE French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was due to arrive in Jerusalem last night with a high-ranking European Union delegation as the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, admitted there had been a "failure of diplomacy" in response to the Gaza crisis so far.

The US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, denied Israel had asked for US backing before its ground offensive into Gaza.

"They didn't seek clearance or approval from us," Mr Cheney told CBS television, adding that the Israelis, America's closest Middle East allies, "haven't told me exactly what they planned to do or when they plan to do it".

"The enemy is not the Palestinians. From the perspective of the Israelis, it's Hamas," Mr Cheney said. "To go after that terrorist organisation, I think, they probably decided that an air campaign wasn't enough, that they had to go in on the ground if they were going to take down the sites from which the rockets have been launched against Israel."

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, Hamas said it would send a delegation to Egypt for talks, the first such contact since fighting began 10 days ago.

Its delegation will include two members of Hamas's political leadership, Emad al-Alami and Mohammed Nasr. A Hamas official said the delegation would travel from Damascus, where its political leader, Khaled Meshal, lives in exile.

The Israeli Social Affairs Minister, Isaac Herzog, told CNN Hamas was under "huge pressure" from the military operation. "The intelligence reports that we've received today in the Israeli cabinet are that Hamas is looking for a respectable way of finding a way to get out of this situation," he said.

Mr Sarkozy was due to meet the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, and the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, during his tour of the region. He will also hold talks with Syrian and Lebanese leaders.