Worldwide alarm at assault

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Israel's tank and troop assault on the Gaza Strip unleashed cries of alarm worldwide yesterday, but Israel won heavyweight U.S. backing as moves for an immediate ceasefire foundered at the United Nations.
 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has denounced Israel's ground offensive as "brutal aggression," according to an account by the Associated Press. These were his harshest words yet in describing Israel's nine-day assault on his Hamas rivals in Gaza.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown echoed grave European concerns when he said the ground offensive was a "very dangerous moment" in the conflict and he called for increased efforts to rapidly secure a ceasefire.

The offensive was condemned across the Middle East, with Egypt saying the U.N. Security Council's silence on Israel's eight-day campaign of air strikes had effectively given Israel "a green light" for the ground assault.

Asian nations expressed alarm, too, with Pakistan and China calling for an immediate end to the assault and Muslims in Indonesia urging war against the Jewish state.

But in New York, the Security Council failed to agree on a statement calling for a ceasefire after the United States argued that a return to the situation that existed before Israel's ground invasion was unacceptable.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said after the four-hour sitting that Washington believed it was important that the region "not return to the status quo" that had allowed Hamas militants to fire rockets into Israel.

"The efforts we are making internationally are designed to establish a sustainable, durable ceasefire that's respected by all," Wolff said. "And that means no more rocket attacks. It means no more smuggling of arms," Agence France-Presse quoted Wolff as saying.

As thousands of Israeli soldiers and scores of tanks pushed into Gaza yesterday, the British premier said assurances needed to be given to both the Israelis and Hamas to secure a ceasefire.

"I think everybody around the world is expressing grave concerns. What we've got to do almost immediately is to work harder than we've done for an immediate ceasefire," Brown said on BBC television.

"I can see the Gaza issues for the Palestinians Ğ that they need humanitarian aid Ğ but the Israelis must have some assurance that there are no rocket attacks coming into Israel," he said. "So first we need an immediate ceasefire, and that includes a stopping of the rockets into Israel."

European reaction to the ground offensive revealed a sharp difference in tone from the official U.S. line. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the decision to send troops into Gaza was a "dangerous military escalation."

EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, called yesterday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, adding that European nations stand ready to contribute international monitors to help keep the peace. "The ceasefire has to be a ceasefire complied (with) by everybody and be clearly maintained," Solana said.

"We are ready to cooperate with other members of the international community to see if necessary how we can monitor the ceasefire," he said.

The violence in the Gaza Strip must stop, European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said yesterday, according to an account by Reuters. "It is absolutely necessary that violence has to stop," she said in Prague.

Meanwhile, the European Union's new Czech presidency said Israel's ground operation was more "defensive than offensive," although it said Israel did not have the right to take military actions "which largely affect civilians."

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Israel's incursion into the impoverished territory was in "brazen defiance" of international calls to end the offensive.

In Asia, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the Israeli offensive was "unjustified."

There was outrage too in Africa. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who also holds the presidency of the Organization of the Islamic Confederation, or OIC, called the Israeli ground offensive a "flagrant violation of the most elementary principles of international law."