Israel begins to withdraw from Gaza

"On behalf of the Saudi people, I declare the donation of one billion dollars for programmes to rebuild Gaza," he said at the opening session of the summit on Monday.

"We have to overcome Arab political differences that led to a division in the Arab ranks which can be exploited by those who want to achieve their regional ambitions," he said.

The meeting in Kuwait City came a day after Hamas, which has de facto control of Gaza, announced a week-long ceasefire.

Israel late on Saturday declared a unilateral ceasefire in the territory but warned that its forces would respond to any attacks from Palestinian fighters.

Arab leaders gathered at the summit are expected to explore possibilities on how to set up a durable ceasefire and rebuild Gaza's devastated infrastructure.

At least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the Israeli offensive, according to estimates from doctors in the territory, which Tel Aviv says is aimed at preventing rocket attacks from Hamas, which is in de facto control of Gaza.

Israeli says that 13 of its citizens have been killed during the conflict, including three civilians.

'United effort'

At least 17 Arab heads of state were attending the two-day talks, while senior representatives stood in for the other five member states of the Arab League.

Arab leaders have been divided on how to respond to Israel's assault on the Palestinian territory and have faced heavy criticism for their apparent inaction.

"In many ways, the Arab world was at a point of profound division until 48 hours ago - the sort of division that has not been seen since the early 1960s," Abdallah Schleifer, professor emeritus of the American University in Cairo, told Al Jazeera.

"This summit is critical in that it is an attempt to come to some sort of consensus between two rival Arab camps that have emerged over the last year."

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti emir, said that those attending the summit would aim to lay out "practical steps to stabilise the ceasefire", as he opened the meeting.

Condemning the Israeli offensive as a "war crime and a crime against humanity", he called for "those responsible to be held accountable".

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and head of Fatah, Hamas' main rival, said that Palestinian political groups should work together to form a national unity government.

"What is required today ... is to form a [Palestinian] national unity government which will then conduct presidential and legislative elections simultaneously," Abbas said at the summit.

"What is needed and necessary now is that all Palestinians should meet to reach an agreement."

His comments were echoed by Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, who was also attending the summit in Kuwait.

"The Palestinians themselves must face the challenge of reconciliation, and work to achieve a unified government under the leadership of President Abbas," Ban said.

"I call on all Arab leaders to unite and support this endeavour. We cannot rebuild Gaza without Palestinian unity."

Ban is set to visit the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry said on Monday, marking the first visit to the territory by the UN chief since the Israeli offensive began.

"Ban is planning to begin his trip in Jerusalem and from there he will visit several UN sites in Gaza," Yossi Levy told AFP.

The UN leader will also visit the Israeli town of Sderot, which lies 5km from the Gaza border and which has been hit by thousands of rockets from Palestinian fighters in recent years.

Regional 'rapprochement'

Also at the summit, the leaders of five Arab states held sideline talks aimed at repairing relations.

Syria and Qatar held Kuwaiti-mediated discussions with Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an attempt to heal a rift over the Israeli offensive on Gaza.

“The meeting was important, clear, and sincere to bring deep reconciliation among the attending leaders. I believe we left the meeting with a new page of relations that should benefit and strengthen the Arab position," Hamed bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, said after the meeting.

While Qatar and Syria favour a firm stance on Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia has said that the conflict has its roots in the alleged interference of Iran.

"The meeting ended with a very positive note. Basically, the leaders were able to come together and reach a rapprochement in their views, in regard to Gaza," Mohammed Vall, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kuwait City, said.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, had earlier come down hard against Israel at the summit.

"Arabs should declare an unequivocal support for the Palestinian  resistance ... I call on the Arab summit to officially declare Israel as a terrorist state for the crime it did in Gaza," he said.

"Ceasefire does not mean the end of aggression as the invading forces are still in Gaza," the Syrian leader said, urging "Arab solidarity... for our causes."

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, said he intends to submit proposals to the summit to review all forms of co-operation with Israel and for "imposing an economic, political and military blockade on Israel."

Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries which have official ties with Israel.

Rival Palestinian groups must work
towards unity, Ban said [AFP]

Al-Assad, right, said the Palestinian resistance against Israel should continue [AFP]

Al-Assad, right, said the Palestinian resistance against Israel should continue [AFP]

Protesters called for the expulsion of the US ambassador to Lebanon

Hanan Zbeeb, a protester, said: "We are here to protest against the aggression on Gaza and against the 1,200 martyrs and 5,500 wounded."

Members of the rally broke through barbed wire near the embassy, and security forces used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowd.

Some demonstrators regrouped and continued to protest, calling on the US ambassador to be expelled from the country.

Demonstrators had also placed dolls representing babies killed during Israeli's war on the barbed wire barricade outside the building.

The protest comes amid sporadic fire after Israel began a unilateral cessation of hostilities early on Sunday morning in its 22-day war on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 1,200 people since December 27.

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, also called for Arab nations to cut ties with Israel [AFP]

Addressing leaders at an emergency Arab summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, al-Assad declared that the Arab initiative for peace with Israel was now "dead".

He said Arab countries should cut "all direct and indirect" ties with Israel in protest against its offensive in Gaza.

Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel and have Israeli embassies.

Summit demands

The Qatari-hosted Arab summit concluded on Friday with participants agreeing to present a Kuwaiti-hosted summit - to be held on Sunday - with a list of measures to end the conflict in Gaza.

Those measures include demanding that Israel stops its offensive in the Strip, is held responsible for "crimes" committed in Gaza and immediately re-opens all crossings.

The summit also agreed that all Arab countries should form a "sea-bridge" that would enable aid supplies to reach Gaza.

Speaking from Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, said Israel should be barred from the United Nations while it continues to ignore UN demands to end the fighting in Gaza.

"How is such a country, which totally ignores and does not implement resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the UN?" he said.

Erdogan's comments came hours ahead of Friday's official visit to Turkey by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

The Turkish leader also added his voice to widespread condemnation of Israel's bombing of a UN compound in Gaza on Thursday.

"The UN building in Gaza was hit while the UN secretary-general was in Israel ... this is an open challenge to the world, teasing the world," he said.

Diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire have intensified over recent days with emergency meetings being held in Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait and Egypt.

Arab divisions

However, Friday's emergency summit in Doha has highlighted divisions within the Arab world, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia declining to attend, preferring instead to send delegates to a separate meeting of foreign ministers in Kuwait.

The Palestinian political factions Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) did attend the Doha summit.

Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Doha, said the delegates recognised the legitimacy of the Gazan factions, whereas Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Western nations have sidelined them from ceasefire talks.

"You have two camps: The so-called moderate Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, some Gulf monarchies like the UAE, and those who are trying to say that we totally disagree with the US attempt to implement a new Middle East."

Ahelbarra said the "moderate camp" is uncomfortable with Hamas's ties with Iran and suspects that the Iranian leadership is using some Arab countries to further its influence in the region.

He said that the latter group believes it has the duty to convey the anti-war feeling of the Arab street and condemn Israel's actions.

Talks are continuing in Cairo over an Egypt-sponsored truce, with Amos Gilad, the Israeli chief negotiator, telling Egyptian officials Israel wants an open-ended ceasefire.

Israel is demanding that rocket fire from Gaza ceases and that an international force is established to prevent weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Hamas want Israeli troops to be withdrawn from the Gaza Strip immediately and for all border crossings into the territory to be permanently re-opened.

While Israel says it reserves the right to use military action if under threat, its emergency security cabinet is expected to vote on Saturday in favour of a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, according to news agency AFP.

By Friday morning, 1,155 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,200 injured since Israel launched its offensive on December 27. One third of the dead are children.

The Bolivian president also dismissed the United Nations and its "Insecurity Council" for its "lukewarm" response to the crisis and said the general assembly should hold an emergency session to condemn the invasion.

"Considering these grave attacks against ... humanity, Bolivia will stop having diplomatic relations with Israel," Morales told diplomats in the Bolivian capital, La Paz.

He also said that Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, should be stripped of
his Nobel Peace Prize for failing to stop the invasion.

Palestinian 'holocaust'

Morales's move follows the decision by his ally Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, to expel Israel's ambassador and embassy staff last week because of the offensive, calling it a "holocaust".

On Wednesday, Venezuela's foreign ministry said it had broken off diplomatic relations with Israel over the Gaza offensive.

Venezuela "has decided to break off diplomatic relations with the state of Israel given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people", the foreign ministry said.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have now died in Israel's offensive in Gaza, around 40 per cent of whom were civilians, aid agencies and Palestinian medics say.

Thirteen Israelis have also died, four from rocket fire from Gaza.

"He [Bush] gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for"

Sean McCormack, a US state department spokesmen, who was with Rice at the UN last week during debate on the security council resolution, said the remarks were "just 100 per cent, totally, completely untrue".

McCormack said that Washington had no plans to seek clarification from Israel.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Ehud Olmert, said the Israeli leader stood by his remarks.

Telephone influence

The Israeli prime minister said on Monday that he demanded to talk to Bush last Thursday, minutes before a vote in the UN Security Council on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

"When we saw that Rice, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the resolution ... I looked for President Bush," Olmert said.

Bush, who Olmert said was taken off a stage in Philadelphia where he was making a speech, said he was not informed on the resolution and was "not familiar with the phrasing".

"I'm familiar with it. You can't vote in favour." Olmert claimed telling the US president.

"He [Bush] gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for," Olmert said.

Bush was in Philadelphia on Thursday morning and gave a 27-minute speech on education policy that ended about 10 hours before the UN vote and there was no interruption of the public event.

The Israeli prime minister described Bush as an "unparalleled friend" of Israel.

UN call

Fourteen of the security council's 15 members supported the legally binding resolution, which has until now failed to stop Israel's offensive in Gaza.

Olmert criticised the UN resolution, saying that "no decision, present or future, will deny us our basic right to defend the residents of Israel".

Israel launched its offensive on December 27, in what it said was an attempt to stop Hamas firing rockets into southern Israel from Gaza.
 
After an intensive air campaign in the first week, Israel sent ground forces into Gaza in the second week of fighting and continues to push deeper into the strip. 

Olmert call 'behind US abstention'

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has said a last-minute telephone call to George Bush forced the US to abstain in a crucial UN vote on the Gaza war.

The Israeli prime minister narrated how he demanded to talk to Bush last Thursday, minutes before a vote in the UN Security Council on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

"When we saw that Rice, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the resolution ... I looked for President Bush," Olmert said.

Bush, who apparently was taken off a stage in Philadelphia where he was making a speech, said he was not informed on the resolution and was "not familiar with the phrasing."

"I'm familiar with it. You can't vote in favour." Olmert claimed telling the US president.

"He [Bush] gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for," Olmert said.

The Israeli PM described Bush as an "unparalleled friend" of Israel.

UN call

Fourteen of the Security Council's 15 members supported the resolution, which has until now failed to stop Israel's operation in Gaza.

Olmert criticised the UN resolution, saying that "no decision, present or future, will deny us our basic right to defend the residents of Israel".

Israel launched its offensive on December 27, in what it said was an attempt to stop Hamas firing rockets into southern Israel from Gaza.
 
After a first week of intense air campaign, Israel sent ground forces into Gaza in the second week of fighting and is now making its deepest push into the Strip.

"The violations of international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and] attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools," he said.

He also rebuked UN member-states for their lack of action over the crisis, saying: "The [UN Security Council] may have found itself unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate ceasefire, but outsourcing that effort to one or two governments, or through the quartet, does not relieve the council of its own responsibilities under the UN charter.

"The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns."

Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian observer at the UN, called for an independent investigation of Israel's "grave breaches and systematic violations of international law".

"Since this crisis began, it is without a doubt that a multitude of war crimes have been perpetrated by the occupying power [Israel]," he said while also calling for "measures for the protection of the defenceless Palestinian civilian population."

Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, dismissed the session as a "cynical, hateful and politicised [attempt] to de-legitimize Israel's fundamental right to defend its citizens".

Gaza war 'genocide'

The emergency meeting had been requested by the 118-member UN member states making up the non-aligned movement.

An Israeli delegate had sought to block the session on procedural grounds by arguing that under the UN charter the 192-member assembly could not rule on a matter already being tackled by the Security Council, but the move was dismissed.

D'Escoto noted that the Security Council last week had called for a Gaza ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

"Prime Minister Olmert's recent statement disavowing the authority of Resolution 1860 [the Security Council resolution] clearly places Israel as a state in contempt of international law and the United Nations," d'Escoto added.

He urged the assembly to agree its own non-binding assembly resolution reflecting "the urgency of our commitment to end this slaughter" in Gaza.

Israel has continued its offensive regardless of the resolution which was also rejected by Hamas.

D'Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Israel's killings of Palestinians in Gaza amounted to "genocide".

Almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's Gaza offensive, which Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza.

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