Turkey harshly condemns Israel’s operation against Gaza
ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News
AFP photo
Turkey calls on the international community and the United Nations to launch the necessary initiatives against Israel’s military operation in Gaza, according to a written statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry late Nov. 14.Turkey said Israel’s operation against Gaza was the latest example of the country’s hostile policies.
“We harshly condemn Israel’s offensive and it must be stopped immediately,” the statement said, adding that no country, including Israel, was above international law.
Israeli operation over Gaza Strip echoes across region
CAIRO - Reuters
Egypt officially requested today a meeting of the U.N. Security Council
to discuss what it described as Israeli aggression on Gaza, the Foreign
Ministry said, Reuters reported.
Egypt, which in 1979 became the
first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, recalled its
ambassador from Israel yesterday after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip
killed Hamas's top military commander.
The peace with Israel has
never been warm, even under U.S.-ally Hosni Mubarak, but ties have
turned even cooler since the longtime autocrat was ousted last year and
Islamists took power.
Egypt's representative to the United
Nations called for the meeting in formal letters to U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the current head of the council,
India's representative, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement.
The Egyptian ambassador expressed Egypt's "serious
alarm at the Israeli aggression on Gaza" and described the attack as a
violation of international law.
He called for urgent
international action, particularly from the council, "to confront this
serious situation which threatens international peace and security."
Egypt's
Foreign Minister Kamel Amr has called on the United States to intervene
and end "Israeli aggression" on the Gaza Strip, state media reported
today.
Amr "requested that the United States immediately
intervene to stop Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza",
MENA news agency reported, adding that Amr spoke to U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton by telephone.
Iran condemns Israel's Gaza strikes as 'terrorism'
Iran condemned today as "organised terrorism" an offensive by Israel against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
"Iran
considers the criminal act of Israeli military forces in killing
civilians as organised terrorism and strongly condemns it," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the
semi-official Fars news agency.
The spokesman also criticised
what he called "the silence of international organizations claiming to
defend human rights," following the strikes.
Israel killed the military commander of Hamas on Wednesday in an air strike on Gaza and threatened an invasion of the enclave.
Hamas retaliated today by firing dozens of rockets into southern Israel, killing three people.
