GERONA, Spain (AP) -- Spain, France and Italy offered a Mideast peace initiative Thursday, asserting that Europe must take a lead role in trying to end years of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed they called intolerable.

The five-point blueprint closely mirrors a deal the moderate Palestinian president is offering Hamas to form a national unity government and makes no explicit reference to requiring Hamas to recognize Israel — a key sticking point blocking the resumption of Western aid to the impoverished Palestinians.

It was not immediately clear if the initiative, put forward by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was an effort to get the aid flowing again without such a declaration from Hamas.

Zapatero announced the plan at a summit with President Jacques Chirac of France. Italy is also on board, Zapatero said, and Spain hopes to win the endorsement of Britain and Germany and the broader European Union in the run-up to a December summit in Brussels, Belgium.

"We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," Zapatero told a news conference in this coastal city near the border with France.

The Israeli government declined to comment on the new plan.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who is close to President Mahmoud Abbas, said any international peace initiative was welcome but he stopped short of a warm endorsement. "We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we don't need a new initiative. What we need is a mechanism for implementation and timelines," Erekat said. " President Bush has specified the end game as a two-state solution. What we need is a realistic political track, and that's where this initiative can come in."

The British Foreign Office declined to comment until the full details of the plan are released in December.