Arab League closer to calling emergency summit

CAIRO: Fourteen Arab governments have backed a call for an emergency summit on violence between Israel and Hezbollah and the Palestinians, but the Arab League remained one vote shy of a two-thirds majority needed to convene a meeting. A senior Arab League official said on Sunday that Somalia, Mauritania, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and the Comoros Islands had joined seven other Arab League members to support a Yemeni proposal for a summit. At least 15 governments in the 22-member Arab League must agree before a summit can go ahead, but more could do so in the days to come. Egypt, Qatar, Algeria, Lebanon, Djibouti, Sudan and the Palestinians had signed on earlier. Consultations have been ongoing for the past couple of days, said Hesham Youssef, a senior aide to Secretary-General Amr Moussa. A number of countries are waiting to see how things develop in Lebanon. As Arab diplomats worked to persuade more governments to join the summit call, Israel bombed Hezbollah s stronghold in Beirut and civilian targets in east and south Lebanon on Sunday and Hezbollah fired rockets at Haifa. Israel s 13-day-old onslaught in Lebanon to cripple Hezbollah has claimed more than 350 lives, mostly civilians. Hezbollah attacks and rockets have also killed more than 30 Israelis. Syria, the only Arab government that openly supports militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, has said its position depended on the aim of the summit. Damascus wants it to support Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas. President Hosni Mubarak has said Arab countries must agree on the main points before the leaders meet. Arab foreign ministers held an emergency meeting in Cairo earlier in July on the violence and called for a ceasefire. Only Saudi Arabia has criticized Hezbollah directly, referring to its military operation at the Lebanese border to seize two Israeli soldiers as an ill-considered adventure. That attack prompted Israel to launch its offensive. But in private, other Arab governments friendly with the United States consider the Hezbollah operation a mistake, diplomats say. Reuters