Arabs slam world inaction over Israeli offensive

Palestinian children gather yesterday around a crater created by an Israeli missile attack on a main road in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya's life will be at risk if the wounded Israeli soldier detained by militants in the Gaza Strip is not freed, a senior Palestinian official warned yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

July 02 2006

AFP Cairo:Israel's offensive in the Palestinian territories drew fierce criticism Friday from Arab countries, which also lambasted world leaders' inaction amid fears of a regional conflict.

"This crazy adventure will light more than one big fire instead of containing a small issue over the abduction of the Israeli soldier," read an editorial in Egypt's state-owned Al-Ahram daily.

Israel carried out dozens of air raids on the Gaza Strip overnight with 5,000 troops waiting to move in to the impoverished territory as part of a plan to free an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants on Sunday.

"The government of (Israeli premier) Ehud Olmert insists on treading further than (his predecessor) Ariel Sharon, the symbol of Israeli heavy-handedness, because it is ready to fight its war against the Palestinians on other lands, Syria and Lebanon," Al-Ahram said.

Israel has also threatened to target Palestinian militant leaders in Syria and raised its state of alert along the Lebanese-Israeli border amid fears of an attack by Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah.

Egypt's state-owned Al-Gomhuria slammed Israel's detention of Hamas ministers and MPs as "proof that it is a state which (operates) outside the law ...

"The Israeli phenomenon has truly become a symbol of shame for the international community," it said in an editorial.

The head of the Egyptian parliament's foreign affairs committee warned on Thursday that his country's peace deal with the Jewish state might even be jeopardised by the offensive.

"Israel should not think that the peace reached with an Arab country can be guaranteed while it continues to perpetrate its crimes and aggressions," Mustafa al-Fekki told AFP.