Egypt slams Israeli 'murder' in Gaza, summons ambassador

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"Egypt condemned as "murder" Israel's Saturday air raids on Gaza that killed at least 205 Palestinians, opening its Rafah border crossing with the territory to allow the wounded through for treatment.

"We call for an immediate end to Israeli military operations. We cannot allow these attacks to continue. We cannot permit the murder of Palestinians," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on state television.

Egypt, the only Arab state along with Jordan to have signed a peace deal with Israel, summoned Ambassador Shalom Cohen to demand an end to the bombardment that has also left hundreds wounded.

"We summoned the Israeli ambassador and we said we refuse this aggression and we demanded an immediate end to it," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told AFP.

Abul Gheit telephoned his US, Russian and French counterparts -- Condoleezza Rice, Sergei Lavrov and Bernard Kouchner -- and urged them to call for an end to Israeli operations that should be "reciprocal" with Hamas, a statement said."

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that her holiday was disrupted... :sarcasm:

their pipelines to Israel as it is quite likely that fuel makes the attacks possible

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"Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 208 people on Saturday, have raised the stakes for Egypt in maintaining a blockade on the territory in spite of strong opposition from the Egyptian public.

The strip, where some 1.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli and Egyptian blockade, is the biggest foreign policy headache the Egyptian government has faced at least since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

Most Egyptian commentators other than those working for the state media find it embarrassing that Egypt is cooperating with the Israelis in a policy widely seen in Egypt as designed to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas by punishing ordinary Palestinians.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday: "The simplest response to the massacre today is to reopen Rafah crossing once and for all. I tell our Arab brothers that the simplest response to the massacre is to end the siege."

The state-owned media rarely mention Egypt's role in restricting the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Instead they highlight the aid Egypt sends to Gaza and its occasional decisions to open the border for humanitarian cases.

But Egyptians interested in regional affairs have easy access through the internet, satellite television and the independent local press to information about the suffering in Gaza and their government's role there.

So why does Egypt continue to restrict access to Gaza?"

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A prominent Arab journalist launched a blistering attack on Saturday against Egypt's foreign minister for the perceived evenhandedness of Cairo's policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, according to Israel Radio.

In an editorial penned for the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, the paper's editor in chief, Abd al-Bari Atwan, takes Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit to task for failing to voice displeasure with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's threats against Hamas during Livni's meetings with senior officials in the Egyptian capital this week.

Rejecting a call for restraint by Hosni Mubarak, Livni on Thursday told the Egyptian President that Israel will act to halt "unbearable" rocket attacks by Gaza militants. "We cannot tolerate a situation in which Hamas continues to target Israel, Israel's citizens, and this situation is going to be changed," Livni told the Egyptian leader.

Atwan wrote that Aboul Gheit's conduct - and his demand that both Israel and Hamas act with restraint and refrain from steps that would inflame tensions - did not distinguish him from that of a foreign minister of Sweden or Costa Rica, according to Israel Radio. The editor also doubted whether Egypt would allow a Hamas official to make similar threats towards Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050385.html