Arab League to Meet in Emergency Session Wednesday

Published November 1st, 2000 - 02:00 GMT
Al Bawaba
Al Bawaba

The Arab League announced it will hold an emergency meeting of its 22 ambassadors on Wednesday to discuss the worsening violence between Israelis and Palestinians. 

The meeting will be held in light of "the latest developments in the Palestinian territories," an Arab League statement said. 

"We have asked for this urgent meeting because we expect serious incidents in the coming days and we want to inform Arab countries of the situation," Mohamed Sobeih, the Palestinian ambassador to the Arab League, told reporters Tuesday. 

More than 150 people, most of them Arabs, have died in more than a month of clashes. On Monday, Israel struck an office affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fateh movement after Israelis were attacked in and around Jerusalem. 

"We are going to ask Arab countries to put into practice resolutions from the Arab summit after the Israeli military escalated its attacks against the Palestinian people," Sobeih said. 

Arab leaders met October 21 and 22 in Cairo and pledged moral and financial support for the Palestinians in violence following protests against Israeli occupation, although they stopped short of taking hardline measures against the Jewish state. 

A source close to the Egyptian foreign ministry said Tuesday that a follow-up meeting to the summit would be held soon, most likely in early November. 

A Lebanese official said Monday the foreign ministers of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians had been invited to a November 4 meeting in Cairo. 

The Arab summit set up a follow-up committee that includes the Palestinian Authority and Israel's neighbors: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.  

Also on the committee are Tunisia, the sole Arab country on the UN Security Council; Saudi Arabia, representing the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Morocco, which is head of an international committee on Jerusalem – CAIRO (AFP) 

 

 

© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

Subscribe

Sign up to our newsletter for exclusive updates and enhanced content