World powers urge Israel to ease checkpoints

World powers have urged Israel to allow Palestinians to move more freely around occupied territories.

World powers have urged Israel to allow Palestinians to move more freely around occupied territories.

The quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations called on Israel in a statement "to take immediate steps, without endangering Israeli security . . . to facilitate rehabilitation and reconstruction by easing the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza and the West Bank and between them."

The four big diplomatic players also urged the Israelis and Palestinians to meet more often to draw up plans for the mid-August Israeli pullout of settlers from Gaza, which they hope will spur peace moves.

"Contacts between the parties should now be intensified at all levels," said the statement issued after the powers met at ministerial level in London.

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Major powers have generally praised the sides for working more closely together in recent weeks.

But Israeli and Palestinian leaders have repeatedly disagreed over how to balance the Jewish state's efforts at stopping militants entering Israel with Palestinians' needs to move more quickly through long lines at security checkpoints.