Arab League to hold emergency meeting on June 16
Cairo, June 14: The Arab League will hold an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on Saturday to try to help end a surge of factional fighting in Gaza, an aide to Secretary-General Amr Moussa said today.
Hesham Youssef said the meeting was called at the request of Egypt, and that preparatory contacts were already underway. The meeting will be held in Cairo, where the Arab League is based.
Hamas Islamist fighters gained ground today against forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in battles for control of the Gaza Strip, a supremacy struggle Abbas termed ''madness''.
Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas today agreed to end the fighting, a television station linked to Abbas's Fatah group reported. But Hamas denied there was a truce, just that they had agreed that violence should end.
Many of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants called the conflict a civil war and Israel served notice their chances of achieving statehood could dim if Hamas emerged victorious over Abbas's Fatah faction, its partner in a unity government.
The day's violence raised the death toll since the surge of fighting began on Saturday to 78, hospital officials said.
Reuters
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