DPA: Arab leaders shocked by deadly Israeli shelling, call for action

By Pakinam Amer
Nov 8, 2006, 16:45 GMT

Cairo - Israel's shelling of Palestinian village Beit Hanoun sparked angry reaction from Arab and Muslim leaders Wednesday with voices almost unanimously calling for some kind of action against the Jewish state.
At least 19 Palestinians were killed and 40 injured, ten of them seriously, when three artillery shells struck houses on the eastern outskirts of the northern Gaza town early Wednesday, in Israel's single deadliest strike on civilians in the past six years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The dead included five women and seven children, the youngest being a one-year-old baby girl.
Palestinian leaders across the political spectrum, including President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, condemned the shelling as an 'awful massacre.'
Haniya headed an emergency cabinet meeting and put talks with Abbas' Fatah party on the formation of a unity government on hold, a statement from his office said. He also called for an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council.
Abbas declared three days of mourning and ordered institutions to lower Palestinian flags to half mast.
The Hamas military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, called on Arabs and Muslims to attack American targets in the Middle East because of the United States' 'logistical and political cover for the crimes committed by the Zionist occupation.'
A senior Hamas leader in northern Gaza, Nizar Rayyan, also called for a renewal of suicide bombings in Israel, after a 20-month suspension called because of the group's entry into parliamentary politics.
Hamas cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad called Israel a 'state of gangs and animals' which should be 'erased' from existence.
In other reactions from across the region, the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said Wednesday that immediate action should be taken 'to guarantee the protection of the Palestinian people from Israel's oppression and State terrorism practised against Palestinian civilians.'
The OIC statement said that the shelling was 'a reaffirmation of Israel's disregard for the international law, its persistence in committing war crimes, and its violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which requires urgent international action to stop these massacres and violations.'
The Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said that he was filled with 'shock' and 'sorrow' by what he called 'the massacre carried out by the Israeli forces this morning.'
The minister called the act 'inhuman and immoral' and said that the international community - formally represented in the UN Security Council - should take responsibility for maintaining peace and security. 'They should further condemn this criminal act and make sure it is never repeated.'
The Arab League expressed similar condemnation, releasing a statement urging international entities to 'deliver a strong statement to Israel.'
'The situation cannot remain as is. Arabs cannot be treated with such negligence or taken so lightly,' Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, was quoted as saying.
The Arab League, in response to the Israeli attack, said its members will meet on Thursday for 'a brainstorming session' about what could be done to end the Palestinian crisis.
The organization said it is planning to send emergency aid (food, blankets and medicines) to the Palestinian people - Beit Hanoun residents especially - as soon as it possibly can. As a start Moussa said Egypt will send two million pounds as preliminary aid.
On a less formal level, the leader of Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Mohammad Mahdi Akef delivered an outspoken response to the Israeli shelling. Akef, who called the act only part of a series of offences against the Palestinians, said that Arab and Muslim nations should 'show their anger.'
'This silence cannot go on,' said Akef. 'We have to impose total economic boycott in order to try to isolate the Zionist entity, so that this racist occupant and ugly regime would fall.'
'These and similar acts aim at forcing Palestinians down to their knees, at making them surrender their rights and they aim at overthrowing its legitimate self-elected government.'
Akef also called on Arab and Muslim states to 'show their anger', possibly in the form of protests, 'in order to mobilize their leaders' against Israel.
Jordan's King Abdullah II condemned the killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip over the past week as an 'ugly massacre.'
He also urged the world community to step in immediately to stop the Israeli incursion and restart the peace process, according to an official statement.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry expressed 'deep concern' over the Israeli shelling. 'Syria is following up with extreme concern the brutal offensive launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip,' a statement said.
'Syria denounces the state-organized terrorism practised by Israel. Israel's brutal aggression poses a defiance to the international community and all international laws, including the international humanitarian law.'
The statement also called on the international community and the UN Security Council to 'live up to their responsibility' on the issue.
Meanwhile, the Damascus-based hardline Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group said the Beit Hanoun incident 'is a new massacre to be added to the record of the brutal massacres committed by the Zionist enemy on the Palestinian people.'
'A suitable response for this massacre is the escalation of the resistance operations ... and to step up suicide operations,' the statement said, calling for an 'overall war' against Israel.
Ahmed Jibril, the secretary general of the Syrian-backed breakaway group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) said the incident was 'clear evidence that the Zionist enemy is an enemy of peace and humanity.'
He pledged that the next few days would be 'full of events and confrontations with Israel.'

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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