Arab foreign ministers to meet on Sunday

Cairo/Brussels: Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo on Sunday to take a common position on Israeli raids which killed at least 155 people in Gaza, the Arab League said on Saturday.

Libya, the only Arab country on the UN Security Council, will seek an urgent meeting of the council, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mousa told reporters, and Syria called for an emergency Arab summit to discuss the crisis.

"The council of Arab foreign ministers will hold an extraordinary and immediate meeting tomorrow ... at the request of Jordan," Mousa said.

"It will take a joint Arab position on what is happening and at the same time agree on the steps to be taken," he said.

Mousa said the attacks on Saturday were only the beginning.

"We are facing a continuing spectacle which has been carefully planned. So we have to expect that there will be many casualties. We face a major humanitarian catastrophe," he said.

A separate Arab League statement condemned the Israeli attacks and said Jordan and Egypt wanted the foreign ministers to "call for an end to the massacres which Israel is committing against the Palestinian people in Gaza."

In Damascus, the official SANA news agency said Syrian President Bashar Al Assad was in contact with Arab leaders on the possibility of holding an emergency Arab summit to discuss what a Syrian official source called a "heinous crime."

The agency said Assad, who hosted the last Arab summit earlier this year, spoke to the leaders of Qatar, Libya, Sudan and Yemen to discuss the Israeli raids on Gaza.

"Syria... calls on Arab leaders to hold an emergency Arab summit to discuss the dangerous situation in Gaza," the source said. The Emir of Qatar, Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, also proposed that Arab leaders follow up the foreign ministers meeting by holding a summit, the Arab League said.

Very concerned

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh condemned the attack as a "barbaric aggression" and called for an emergency Arab summit to be held to discuss it, Yemen's state news agency Saba reported.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora also condemned Israel's "latest massacres" in Gaza and appealed in a statement to the UN and its secretary-general to take swift measures to end the Israeli attacks.

The European Union called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Saturday and backed Egyptian efforts to restore a truce and end the "disproportionate use of force." "We are very concerned at the events in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and urge everybody to exert maximum restraint," a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

EU president France said it condemned the Israeli bombardments and the rocket attacks from Gaza and called for both to stop immediately.

The EU's executive body, the European Commission, also called for "utmost restraint."

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement both sides must stop the escalation of violence and called for an immediate return to the ceasefire.

Reaction: UAE reviles aggression

The UAE has condemned the current Israeli aggression on Gaza. In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it also voiced support to the Jordanian request for an emergency Arab League meeting. The meeting which is to be at the level of foreign ministers will discuss and formulate a unified Arab position to stop the current aggression on Gaza.

- WAM