Israeli troops quit Gaza after bloody clash

Israeli troops and tanks left the Gaza Strip yesterday after the bloodiest clash in the Hamas-ruled enclave in 14 months killed two soldiers and a Palestinian.

The violence underscored the deadlock in US-mediated contacts between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose peacemaking bids have been sapped by Hamas hostility along with continued Israeli settlement construction on occupied land. The Arab League, which had given its blessing to indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations only to see that initiative stall like many before it, signalled a major review in strategy.

"We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure," League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told Arab leaders gathered in the Libyan town of Sirte. "It's time to face Israel. We have to have alternative plans because the situation has reached a turning point," he said.

The impasse has triggered sporadic rocket attacks this month from Gaza that drew Israeli air strikes. On Friday, Palestinians ambushed soldiers who, the army said, had crossed the border to dismantle a mine. Two infantrymen were killed and two wounded. The skirmish – in which the army said it believed it had killed two gunmen – was the fiercest since the three-week Gaza war of early 2009. Some 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, mainly troops, died in that conflict.

Hamas said its men took part in Friday's fighting to repel the incursion. 

Israel stand on united Jerusalem 'madness'

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted Israel's policy of considering the whole of Jerusalem as its united capital as "madness", in a speech at the Arab summit yesterday. "This is madness and it does not commit us in any way," Erdogan said, whose address in Turkish was translated into Arabic. "Jerusalem is the apple of the eye of each and every Muslim… and we cannot at all accept any Israeli violation in Jerusalem or in Muslim sites," Erdogan added.

Speaking at the summit, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Arab leaders to join efforts with the world community to outlaw Somalia's powerful Shebab militia in their respective countries. (AFP)

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.