CAIRO, November 18 (RIA Novosti) - The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank urged the Arab League to hold an emergency summit to discuss Israel’s military operation against Gaza, the Arab League’s secretariat said.
PA’s permanent envoy to the Arab League, Barakat Al-Farra, handed over the official request for an emergency summit to the organization’s secretariat on Sunday. Several hours later, the organization’s Secretary General Arab Nabil al-Araby notified all member states about the request.
“The Arab League is set to hold an Arab summit at the earliest possible date to discuss situation in Gaza and to discuss supporting Palestinians not just politically, but also financially,” the organization’s secretariat said.
Foreign ministers of the Arab League member states held an emergency meeting in Cairo late on Saturday to discuss the Israeli operation.
Al-Araby said after the ministerial meeting that the organization may to review its stance on Palestinian peace settlement and “is set to study the possibilities of changing the general principles of the 2002 Arab peace initiative”
In 2002, Arab states offered Israel a peace agreement and diplomatic recognition in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and “a just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem.
Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense on Wednesday, killing Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jabari and attacking hundreds of rocket-launching sites, ammunition depots and “terrorist” cells that belong to radical Islamist groups operating in Gaza, primarily Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
