Arab ministers meet over Gaza attacks
Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting this weekend to forge a response to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 50 people in the past few days, the head of the Arab League said today.
Secretary General Amr Moussa said he called the meeting for Sunday at the request of the Palestinians and Lebanon to “look into practical steps and measures to deal with the Israeli ongoing and recurrent aggression on the Palestinian people, the latest of which is the Beit Hanoun massacre.”
Israeli artillery killed 18 civilians in a crowded Gaza neighbourhood of Beit Hanoun yesterday, the latest bloodshed in Israel’s week-long offensive meant to halt militant rocket attacks.
Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar, of the Hamas militant group, came to Cairo on Thursday to discuss Israel’s attacks in Gaza with his Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
Zahar’s own son-in-law was killed Wednesday when Israeli aircraft blasted a car in Gaza City with missiles. The son-in-law was the chief rocket maker of Hamas.
Israel confirmed he was the target of the attack, which killed a second Hamas militant.
In New York, the UN Security Council scheduled an open meeting on Thursday in response to Palestinian calls for it to condemn Israel’s killing and demand the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
The latest violence in Gaza marked the highest number of Palestinian civilians killed in a single strike since fighting erupted six years ago, and undermined Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ attempts to form a more moderate government and renew a peace process with Israel.
Abbas and Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Mashaal on Thursday spoke to each other for the first time in months in what officials said was a sign that the rival leaders were close to forming a coalition government.
Zahar confirmed this in an interview he gave to Al-Jazeera satellite television during his visit to Cairo.
“Soon there will be a national unity Palestinian government, God willing,” Zahar said.
Zahar dismissed as lies Israel’s accusations that the Palestinians were digging tunnels under the Gaza-Egyptian border to smuggle in weapons.
“The whole thing is fabricated. Where are the new weapons? Has any Israeli plane been shot down by the new weapons?” he said to Al-Jazeera.
Zahar denied reports that Hamas had alienated Arab states by continuing to refuse to recognise Israel, a step that has been essential to Arab attempts to broker a compromise with Abbas’ Fatah Party and to revive the peace process with Israel.
Zahar said Hamas had receiving money from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab countries.
“Even Libya, which has distanced itself from the Palestinian question, paid us. When (Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi met us, he gave us £25m (€37.1m),” Zahar said.
The Abbas-Mashaal talks signaled that Hamas may be hesitant to act on its threat to resume attacks on Israel following this week’s deadly Israeli artillery barrage in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mashaal yesterday called on Arab and Muslim nations, their leaders and religious scholars to support Palestinians, and announced that the truce with Israel was over, raising the fear of renewed suicide terror attacks by Hamas militants.
Abbas has been trying to persuade Hamas, which controls the Palestinian legislature, to form a coalition government with Fatah in the hope that this would force Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence, and thereby end the international boycott against the Palestinian government.
Israel launched its Gaza campaign in June after Hamas-linked militants captured an Israeli soldier, 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
The United States blocked an Arab-backed UN resolution several weeks later that would have demanded Israel halt the offensive, the first UN Security Council veto in nearly two years.
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