Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr called on the United States to “immediately intervene” to end “Israeli aggression on Gaza, Reuters reported Thursday.
Amr “requested that the United States immediately intervene to stop Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza,” MENA news agency reported, adding that Amr spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by telephone.
The United States said Wednesday it supported Israel’s right to self-defense and condemned militant rocket attacks on southern Israel.
But U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement that “we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties” as it unveiled an operation targeting militant groups in the Palestinian territory.
On Thursday France has also said Israeli has the right to self-defense.
Egypt also officially requested on Thursday a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss what it described as Israeli “aggression” on Gaza, Reuters reported the Foreign Ministry saying in a statement.
It said Egypt’s representative to the United Nations had sent formal requests to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and to the current head of the council, India’s representative.
The U.N. Security Council held a late night emergency meeting Wednesday on escalating tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
The 15-nation council held closed talks with the Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors to the United Nations. The major powers and United Nations have all urged both sides to pull back from all-out conflict.
Egypt had urged the Security Council meeting after Israel carried out more than 20 air strikes and sea artillery attacks on Gaza, killing the military commander for Hamas, which controls the territory. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said at least nine people were killed on Wednesday.
Arab ambassadors said they wanted the council to condemn Israel.
The Arab group of nations want the council “to condemn that barbaric attack” and “to send a strong message to call for a cessation of hostilities,” AFP reported Sudan’s U.N. envoy Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, current chairman of the Arab bloc, saying.
“We want the Security Council to shoulder its responsibility and to find an immediate way to stop this aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip,” said Mansour.
The Arab League said on Wednesday that it will hold a meeting on Gaza on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the military operation could be expanded and the country’s U.N. ambassador Ron Prosor said that “indiscriminate” rocket fire from Gaza had forced Israel’s hand.
Gaza “is a strategic threat against the state of Israel, missiles flying in to major cities in Israel,” Prosor told reporters.
“This is not finished yet,” added the Israeli envoy. “We have shown restraint but if this continues, Israel will do everything that it takes to defend its own citizens, like any other country would do.”
Rockets killed three people in Israel Thursday soon after three Palestinian fighters died in an air strike, as Israel pressed a vast Gaza operation which began with a hit on a Hamas chief.
Alarabiya
