KUWAIT CITY: Arab heads of state are to hold a special summit on the Gaza crisis alongside a planned economic summit in Kuwait on Jan. 19-20, a Kuwaiti daily reported on Saturday.
The An-Nahar newspaper said that the 22-member Arab League had accepted the Kuwaiti offer to host the talks, which came amid spiraling protests in the Arab world against Arab governments failure to do more to halt the Israeli offensive now in its third week.
Straight after the launch of the Israeli assault on Dec. 27, Qatar had offered to host an emergency summit but the proposed Jan. 2 gathering ran into opposition from Egypt and Saudi Arabia and never materialized.
Arab diplomatic efforts have instead focused on the UN Security Council where after a compromise between Arab and Western representatives a resolution was eventually passed on Friday demanding an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
But both Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, rejected the call and the conflict entered a third week on Saturday with more than 900 people dead. -AFP
