Egypt: Israeli provocations need to stop

Egypt-Israel, Politics, 5/25/2006

Arab news

Egypt described an Israeli raid into the West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday as provocative and incompatible with peace efforts. "We demand an immediate end to the use of disproportionate violent measures which are likely to deepen the chasm between the sides," said Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

He was reacting to a raid in which Israeli troops killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 40 others.

The Israeli forces took into custody Mohamed al-Shoubaki, a top financier for resistance group Islamic Jihad, before withdrawing from Ramallah under attack from Palestinian gunmen and stone-throwers.

Abul- Gheit said: "Storming Palestinian towns in this manner, which shows contempt for the feelings of Palestinians and provokes them, is not the approach which could lead ...towards starting negotiations and achieving peace."

In Ramallah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the raid showed poor faith by Israel, coming a day after its Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed in Washington to pursue peacemaking. "The Israeli government and army are doing their best to increase tensions, destroy the truce and prevent the return to the negotiating table to revive the peace process," Reuters quoted the spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah.


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