Alarmed Western leaders rushed to urge Israel and the Palestinians to pull back from the brink of war following a dramatic escalation of violence between the two sides on Thursday.
US President Bill Clinton spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat while his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, called for greater leadership by both sides and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that the crisis was in danger of spiralling out of control.
UN chief Kofi Annan cut short a lunch at the UN headquarters in south Lebanon and headed for Israel on hearing that Israel had launched rocket attacks on targets in Palestinian-controlled territory after two of its soldiers were lynched by an angry crowd of Palestinians in the West Bank.
A White House spokesman said Clinton was "greatly concerned" at the possibility that the killing of the two Israeli soldiers could "easily escalate into something even more dangerous."
US officials "are doing everything (they) can to prevent further escalation," the spokesman said.
Albright urged Arafat to demand an end to mob violence and demanded that Barak order a halt to retaliatory military operations by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
"No matter how justified they might feel ... we're calling on the Israelis to bring an immediate end to the current operations by the IDF," she said, referring to Israeli helicopter rocket attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza City and the West Bank town of Ramallah, where the soldiers were killed.
"Now is the time for leadership. There needs to be a ceasefire by both sides," she said.
Algright also called on the international community to work together "in urging Chairman Arafat to take the steps necessary to bring this senseless and destructive cycle of fighting to an end."
In London, Blair sent messages to both Barak and Arafat expressing his "deep concern" at the latest events, warning that action was needed to prevent the violence "spiralling out of control."
A government spokesman said Blair had also spoken by telephone to Clinton to offer British support for the latest US efforts to get a political dialogue resumed between the two sides.
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, currently on a tour of the Middle East, said he was "greatly shocked" at the latest escalation, and said it was "vital for everyone to keep cool heads."
He warned that the situation was "very serious, very grave" before holding talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh and flying on for talks in Damascus and Amman.
Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, attending a summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, urged Israel to halt acts of violence against the Palestinians and stressed the need "to deploy every possible effort in order to calm the situation and put back on track the peace process".
French President Jacques Chirac, after speaking by telephone with Annan, said: "France calls urgently on each party to do nothing that could cause irreparable harm to the cause of peace."
At the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson expressed concern at the heightened tension in the Middle East and said there was "clear evidence of worsening relations" between the two sides -- PARIS (AFP
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