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Abbas appeals for US help
Mark Tran and agencies
Friday May 18, 2007

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, today urged the US to ask Israel to halt its military escalation.
Mr Abbas made his appeal as Israeli aircraft struck Gaza for a second day running. The Palestinian Wafa news agency said it had come in a phone call to the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

He was quoted by Wafa as asking Ms Rice "to stop the Israeli military escalation against our people and continue their efforts to push the peace process forward".

It happened as Israel threatened a more vigorous response to stop rocket attacks from Gaza.

The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, told foreign ambassadors that the government could decide on further action within days, and said the cabinet would meet as usual on Sunday.

"For too long the international community took this situation in the southern part of Israel as acceptable, as part of life in Israel, and it's not. Enough is enough," Ms Livni said.

At least six Palestinians were killed and scores more injured when Israeli planes launched six raids on different targets in Gaza, the Palestinian news agency reported.

The Israeli military said it had attacked a rocket crew in the northern Gaza Strip, and claimed eight missiles had struck Israel in the morning. One hit a house in the town of Sderot, causing what doctors said were minor injuries.

At least 10 Palestinians, most of them Hamas members, have been killed in Israeli strikes since early yesterday in response to continued rocket fire from Gaza.

Militants have fired around 100 rockets at Sderot and the surrounding area in the past week, causing several injuries but no deaths.

A senior Israel Defence Forces official said the military would continue attacking Hamas targets in Gaza for as long as necessary, but expressed reservations over an extensive ground operation.

"We have to think from the end to the beginning," he told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper. "The question is, where does an operation like this place us on the day after?"

The Israeli attacks have added another dimension to the fierce infighting between Hamas and Fatah, who formed a Saudi-brokered Palestinian unity government only two months ago.

The Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, said the Palestinians and Israel both bore responsibility for the violence raging in the Gaza Strip.

"The situation is caused by the dire conditions in which the Gazans are living because of the Israeli military occupation, the economic embargo and 70% unemployment," he told the Associated Press.

Mr Moussa - who is attending a World Economic Forum meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea - added that the riven Palestinian leadership of the moderate Fatah party and the militant Hamas organisation must also take responsibility.

"It doesn't mean that the Palestinians aren't responsible because they shouldn't have resorted to ... bloodshed," he said. "Compounded with the Israeli occupation and the violence against them, and without hope that a state is coming, what do you expect?"

Mr Moussa said foreign aid to the Palestinians - mainly from the EU - was insufficient for the cash-strapped Palestinian economy.

"This is not enough," he added. "The economic embargo has got to be totally and completely lifted. This situation will continue, if not worsen, if the causes remain."

The west imposed an economic embargo on the Palestinian government because it includes Hamas.

Western government have demanded that the organisation, which won a surprise victory in the parliamentary elections early last year, recognises Israel, renounces violence and commits to past agreements before aid is restored. Hamas has rejected those demands.

The UN's new Middle East peace envoy said the escalating violence threatened a "rapid deterioration" in the situation and could wreck hopes of reinvigorated peace talks.

"The situation is very serious indeed," Michael Williams told the Financial Times. "If this level of violence continues, it will be increasingly difficult to contain politically and will threaten the very roots of the national unity government."

Abbas appeals for US help (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2082851,00.html)