(Refiles to fix headline) By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to New York on Tuesday to discuss with key powers how to get a ceasefire in Gaza that the United States says must be durable, sustainable and indefinite. Rice was to meet foreign ministers gathering for a United Nations Security Council meetings on ending the Israeli offensive launched last month with the stated aim of stopping Palestinian rocket attacks on civilians in southern Israel. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,700 wounded since Israel began its campaign in Gaza, which is controlled by the Hamas Islamist group. Nine Israelis, including three civilians hit by rocket fire, have died. "We would like an immediate ceasefire, absolutely, an immediate ceasefire that is durable and sustainable and non-time-limited," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters at his daily briefing. While some of the United States' allies in Europe and in the Arab world have called for an immediate ceasefire, the United States has tended to steer away from the phrase and to stress that any cessation must be durable and indefinite. The Bush administration has consistently supported Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza and McCormack's comments stopped well short of calling on Israel to halt its offensive. The Bush administration is pressing for a ceasefire that would include three elements: a halt to rocket attacks from Gaza, the opening of border crossings into the territory and an end to smuggling into the area through tunnels from Egypt. "There is some degree of coalescing around those elements," McCormack told reporters, playing down expectations that a Security Council resolution would emerge quickly and saying that there were still "a lot of details" to be worked out. "It's going to be hard for us to support anything that doesn't deal with those three elements," said another U.S. official who spoke on condition that he not be named. "There isn't a whole lot of flexibility here." Under an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in June, Hamas agreed to halt rocket fire in return for Israel easing the blockade. Israel began its offensive on Dec. 27 after Hamas declared an end to that truce. Barack Obama, who takes over as U.S. president from George W. Bush on Jan. 20, broke his silence about the violence on Tuesday, saying the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel was a "source of deep concern for me." He declined further comment, saying he believed that only Bush should be the voice of U.S. foreign policy for now. RENEGOTIATING CEASEFIRE? Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the region in 2007. Israel's frequent closure of Gaza's border crossings increased hardships for the aid-dependent territory's 1.5 million residents. Martin Indyk, a top U.S. diplomat under U.S. President Bill Clinton and the author of "Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East," said Hamas and Israel were "both using force to try to improve the conditions of the ceasefire." He said Hamas wanted an easing of the blockade, while Israel wanted to stop the rocket fire and to ensure tighter controls to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza. "Without a diplomatic alternative the chances that the conflict will spiral down ... is very real now," he added. "The Israeli army is surrounding major population centers ... if they go in there the casualties will be higher on both sides." Rice tentatively decided on Monday to attend the U.N. session in New York, McCormack said, before Israeli tank shells killed at least 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a U.N. school in Gaza where civilians had taken shelter. [ID:nL6379966] U.S. officials said Rice's U.N. trip in part aimed to blunt possible accusations that the United States was indifferent to the suffering of Gazans had she stayed away. Security Council diplomats said it would take at least several days to prepare a ceasefire resolution for a vote. "The end of this week at the earliest, more likely next week," one diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The Arabs are advocating an immediate halt to the fighting, diplomats said, while U.S. officials have made clear they did not back a ceasefire without mechanisms to prevent rocket attacks against Israel and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Once an agreement on those mechanisms is reached -- and it must be acceptable to Israel -- that deal would form the basis of a Security Council resolution which the French will most likely draft and negotiate, the diplomats said. (Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Matt Spetalnick and Andrew Sullivan in Washington and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Editing by )
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