Amr Mussa

CAIRO, April 6 (News Agencies) – Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said Saturday that Israel could attack other Arab countries after the end of its offensive, launched March 29, in the West Bank, news agencies reported.

"The political establishment in Israel thinks now is the right time to implement all its plans, which start first in Palestine but which do not stop in Palestine," he said.

At the opening of a meeting of Arab members of parliament, preceding a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers Mussa said, "we cannot accept the remarks that Israel is in a state of self-defense and legitimate defense," referring to U.S. President George W. Bush statements.

"Such remarks invert reality because the Israeli occupation army is in itself a concretization of the aggression, whose victim is the Palestinian people," Mussa said in a speech broadcast live on Egyptian television.

Mussa, speaking at the Egyptian People's Assembly, also urged "the Arab peoples to support the Palestinian resistance. The resistance is a legitimate right and a natural reaction to the Israeli occupation."

The Arab League chief also asked for application of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the right of civilians under occupation to protection in order to ensure "protection for Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories."

He accused Israel of rejecting "a fair peace" and of seeking "a twisted peace" based only on Israeli conditions.

"Israel considers itself above the law because it believes it enjoys irrevocable support from a superpower," he said in reference to the United States.

The foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League opened an emergency meeting Saturday to find ways to support the Palestinians, reeling from a massive Israeli offensive in the West Bank.

An AFP reporter said the ministers assembled at Arab League headquarters in Cairo amid Palestinian calls for Arab countries to break diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with Israel.

The ministers held a preparatory meeting here Friday night to discuss the "explosive situation" in the occupied territories.

A draft communiqué calls for an "Arab action plan" to press the United States, the European Union and the U.N. Security Council to obtain a halt to the "Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people and the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the autonomous occupied territories," a League official said.

The official also said, on condition of anonymity that the Arab states will also urged the EU to freeze partnership and scientific and technological accords with Israel.

Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath urged all Arab leaders to spurn U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell if he refuses to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"You must refuse to meet Powell if he refuses to meet Arafat," Shaath told the opening of an emergency Arab foreign ministers meeting.

Powell, due to leave Washington Sunday for a high-risk diplomatic mission in the Middle East, said he did not plan to meet with Arafat for now.

"We ask you to deal with him according to the principle of reciprocity. We're not going to ask you for more," he said.

"We assure you that no Palestinian official will meet Powell if he refuses to meet Arafat," Shaath said.

"We want the United States to adopt a fair position. How can Powell come to meet the terrorist Sharon (Israeli Prime Minister) while President Arafat remains under siege," Shaath asked.

Shaath called  for "the support of Arab countries to protect President Yasser Arafat, the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, at a moment when Israel, backed by the United States, wants to give itself the right to chose who represents or does not represent the Palestinian people."

Shaath's appeal was less dramatic than one issued earlier by the speaker of the Palestinian parliament in exile, Salim Zaanoun, to Arab members of parliament meeting separately.

The Palestinians want Arab countries "to break diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with the occupation government in Israel and to stop all forms of normalization with it," Zaanoun told the MPs.

Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania have diplomatic ties with Israel. Egypt and Jordan have said they do not plan to break their ties because they have obligations under the peace treaties with Israel, while Mauritania says it does not want to be the only Arab country to take such a decision. Some other Arab countries like Morocco maintain limited ties with Israel.

Zaanoun also urged the Arabs to recall their ambassadors from Washington for consultation if Powell's mission to the region is only a "show to dupe the Arabs."

He called for Arab countries to activate a joint Arab defense pact, which calls on all members of the Arab League to undertake collective military action if anyone of them is attacked.

Zaanoun also asked for a doubling of Arab financial aid for Palestinians.

The Arab summit that met in Beirut last week decided on monthly aid of 55 million dollars over the next six months.

Speaking to Qatari-based Al Jazeera Satellite Channel, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh said he favors sending weapons, men and money to the Palestinians to help their struggle against Israel's ongoing military offensive in the West Bank.

"Support for the intifada comes by sending the Palestinians money, men, weapons and ammunition," Saleh told Qatar's Al-Jazeera television late Friday.

Saleh urged Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania to break diplomatic ties with Israel to help "stop Palestinian blood flowing," and demanded the "reactivation of the Arab common defense treaty."

In an interview with CNN, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said that all contact had been lost with besieged President Arafat.

He told the network that the Palestinian leadership had been unable to get in touch with Arafat, who has been trapped in his offices in Ramallah for nine days since Israeli troops launched a vast offensive through the West Bank.

Earlier, Palestinian sources said the Israeli army had cut the electricity supply to Arafat's offices.

Arafat informed the Palestinian information chief in Gaza, General Amin al- Hindi, of the "disturbing" development via walkie-talkie, the sources said.

Arafat also told Hindi that Israeli soldiers had not allowed supplies to reach his offices on Friday, where he has been under affective house arrest with several bodyguards since March 29, when Israel launched a major offensive in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

The Palestinian leadership on Saturday urged world bodies take immediate steps towards ending the Israeli army's "massacre" in the reoccupied West Bank town of Jenin.

It called in a statement on "the United Nations Security Council and all international organizations to take immediate action to save Jenin's refugee camp from the massacre committed there by the Israeli occupation forces."

The bodies of six Palestinians were found Saturday, while two Israeli soldiers were killed in ferocious fighting overnight in the northern West Bank city, one of six major autonomous Palestinian towns invaded by the Israeli army in its latest military push.

The communique singled out the army's chief of staff Shaul Mofaz for his central role in commanding the operation in Jenin, a city which is considered to be a bastion of militant activity and from where several suicide bombers have attacked Israel.

The Israeli army moved into the northern West Bank city on Wednesday, prompting Arafat to pay tribute to the Palestinian "heroes" defending Jenin.

In continuous aggression, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead Saturday by Israeli occupation troops in the Al-Fawar refugee camp near the southern West Bank town of Hebron, Palestinian witnesses said.

The sources said Robin Khdur was shot in the chest and killed when Israeli tanks and troop carriers moving towards Yatta, south of Hebron, responded with gunfire to a group of young Palestinian stone-throwers.