BARCELONA, March 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The European Union has made its most impassioned plea yet for Middle East peace, condemning violence and demanding fast action on a UN resolution that for the first time spoke of a Palestinian state.

The resolution also demanded the lifting of all travel restrictions on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Winding up a two-day summit in Barcelona, Spain, the EU heads of state and government issued their longest, most detailed statement yet on the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories, a two-and-a-half-page, 13-point document imploring both sides to stop killing.

In the previous two weeks, the Israeli occupation forces waged a bloody war on Palestinian civilians as the Palestinians retaliates by martyr operations against the Israelis. The continuous Israeli aggression in the occupied territories has roused both the international and Arab condemnation. 

The EU document, said the UN Security Council resolution passed last Tuesday "must be urgently implemented, in particular the demand for an immediate cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction."

It noted the Israeli government's decision to "release" Arafat "from his confinement" in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and demanded "that all remaining restrictions on his freedom of movement be immediately lifted."

The EU, said Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, "must not wait for the Arab League summit in Beirut to take place before (Arafat) obtains his freedom."

"The Middle East is in the grip of an extremely grave crisis," said the EU statement, which called "on both sides to take immediate and effective action to stop the bloodshed.

"There is no military solution to this conflict," it said. "Peace and security can only be achieved through negotiations."

Pique called the EU declaration "clear, serious and categorical."

However, the final version was somewhat watered down from earlier drafts, which contained phrases denouncing Israel's "policy which aims to hit the Palestinians ever harder...and cannot be justified," and a demand that Israel respect the Geneva Convention in its treatment of Palestinians.

In the end, pragmatism took precedence over emotion among the EU leaders, but without seriously weakening the text, said a European diplomat.

It reiterated the EU's proposal to send observers to the Middle East despite the tepid reaction that idea had received in the past from Israel as well as Washington.

The 15-nation bloc, it said, "remains convinced that a third party monitoring mechanism would help both parties to pursue their efforts" toward peace, "and urges them to consider proposals to accept observers. The EU and the member states are prepared to participate in such a mechanism."

The statement said that Israel "must immediately withdraw its military forces from areas placed under the control of the Palestinian Authority, stop extra-judicial executions, lift the closures and restrictions, freeze settlements."

The EU welcomed the new Saudi land-for-peace proposals as well as the upcoming Arab League summit in Beirut later this month as a chance to return to the peace process.

The EU summit has been faced with a huge protest on Saturday where more than 300,000 demonstrated against the summit and calling for the end of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian civilians and calling the EU not to support a decision of attacking Iraq.

According to BBC’s online news service, eighteen have been injured, including seven policemen - came towards the end of a march which for the most part was noisy but peaceful.

Some 50 people were seen being detained as riot police fired tear gas at the end of the protest to disperse small gangs of anarchists who smashed bank windows with metal bars along the route of the early-evening march.

The demonstrators - who had been marching from Placa de Catalunya to the harbour front - were protesting against everything from the Euro and free-market globalization to Israeli violence, BBC said.