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Arabs break Israeli ties
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ISRAELI Foreign Minister Shimon Peres expressed regrets yesterday at the Arab League's call on member states to cut all contacts with Israel, a statement from his office said.
Peres also felt that Israel was facing one of the most difficult crises since the war that accompanied its foundation in 1948, the statement said.
He recalled that under the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians differences should be resolved through dialogue around the negotiating table.
An Arab League committee recommended on Saturday that its 22 members cold-shoulder Israel by stopping all political contacts with the Jewish state while its aggression against the Palestinians continues.
World leaders have called for an end to the spiralling violence in the Middle East as the risk of all-out war increases.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday that the Middle East situation was "gravely worsening," expressing fear that it might become "more complicated and reach a point of no return."
US President George W Bush, UN leader Kofi Annan and political leaders in Britain and France all voiced concerns at the escalating fighting which Israel ratcheted up on Friday with the use of war planes to hit Palestinian targets.
The spiral of retaliatory attacks continued on Saturday with a powerful bomb blast in central Jerusalem.
The Israeli fighter-bomber raids, which left nine people dead and 100 more injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were themselves in retaliation to a suicide bombing in Israel, which killed six people and was claimed by the hardline Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas.
UN Secretary General Annan condemned as disproportionate the Israeli air raids against Palestinian areas.
In a statement, Annan described the suicide bombing as an "appalling terrorist attack" but said he was "deeply disturbed by the disproportionate Israeli response".
The Palestinian Authority called Israel's use of warplanes a "dangerous escalation" and appealed to the world community to stop the "massacres" of Palestinians. (SD-Agencies)
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