World leaders on Monday condemned as unlawful the killing of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and warned Israel may have buried the peace process along with any hope of resolving the bloody Arab-Israeli conflict.
Fearful the killing will unleash a new spiral of violence in the region blighted by decades of conflict, governments lined up to urge both sides to show restraint as the Palestinian militant group Hamas vowed an all-out war.
Amid a wave of fury in the Palestinian territories which drew thousands out onto the streets, Arab countries led initial outrage at Israel’s dawn helicopter strike against the blind, wheelchair-bound, 67-year-old sheikh in Gaza City.
But European and Asian leaders were swift to warn that the attack could herald a dangerous new phase in the dragging conflict, unresolved since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Israel had the right to defend itself from terrorism, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters in Brussels ahead of an EU foreign ministers meeting called to discuss the fight on terrorism.
”But it is not entitled going for this kind of unlawful killing and we therefore condemn it,” the British minister said.
”A measurable restraint is required and I don’t believe Israel will benefit from the fact that this morning an (elderly man) in a wheelchair has been the target of assassination.”
In a statement, EU foreign ministers condemned the assassination saying it had only poured oil on the tense situation and called for restraint.
”The assassination which has just been carried out has inflamed the situation,” said the statement.
In the first US reaction, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Washington ”did not have advance warning” of the attack and repeated previous US calls for calm.
”We would just ask everyone to step back and do nothing that precludes a better day,” Rice told Fox News.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians marched through the occupied territories early Monday, shouting, wailing with some toting guns. Such scenes were repeated in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared three days of mourning.
Arafat and the Palestinian leadership ”condemned this fresh Israeli crime, the assassination of Sheikh Yassin and other citizens in front of a mosque in Gaza”.
In spite of the ”barbaric crime”, the Palestinian people would pursue ”the heroic resistance against the occupation and the apartheid wall”, an official statement added referring to the barrier being built by Israel to cut off the West Bank.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin condemned the killing as a setback for the Middle East peace process.
”At a time when it is so important to mobilise ourselves to advance the peace process, such acts can only feed the spiral of violence,” he told reporters in Brussels.
Russia said it was deeply worried Monday’s events could fuel new violence ”which could sabotage efforts to restart negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Yakovenko said.
In a statement, Moscow urged both sides to renew their commitment to the implementation of the so-called ”roadmap” plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Russia, along with the EU, the United Nations and the United States, is one of the co-sponsors of the ”roadmap”, which envisions a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel by 2005.
But many believed the roadmap, which has stumbled ever since it was conceived, lay in tatters on Monday.
The secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Mussa, said the sheikh’s assassination was ”state terrorism in its most hideous form”.
”With this odious operation, Israel is seeking to undermine all hope of creating conditions that would allow us to envisage a political solution to the conflict in the Middle East,” Mussa said, quoted by his spokesman Houssam Zaki in Tunis.
The killing ahead of next week’s Arab Summit in Tunis, was ”tantamount to Israel refusing to take the extended hand of peace,” he added.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana condemned Monday Israel’s killing of Yassin as ”very, very bad news” for the Middle East peace process.
”This type of action does not contribute at all to create the conditions of peace,” he told reporters in Brussels.
Japan, a large donor to the Middle East, also called on Israel to exercise ”maximum self-restraint” after Yassin’s killing.
”We strongly fear that this incident will intensify violent activities on the part of Palestinian extremists and others, and trigger a chain of violence,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters.
”The chain of violence, or the chain of hatred should be cut off as soon as possible,” added Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
South Africa said the only way to break the circle of violence in the Middle East was for Israel to return Palestinian territories and for both sides to resume unconditional talks.
Hailing Sheikh Yassin as ”a moderating influence,” Pretoria expressed concern that the assassination will ”inevitably lead to retaliation and massive counter-retaliation. Arab leaders went further calling the assassination a ”crime” that would fuel more violence.
”This crime will lead to more escalation, violence and instability” in the region, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned in a palace statement, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories.
He urged the international community to ”bear its responsibilities and move to bring the peace process back on track and save the region from the state of violence and chaos we continuously reject”.
Iran also condemned the killing as an act of state-sponsored terrorism against the Palestinian people.
”Unfortunately the indifference of the world community towards the oppression of the Palestinians has made the Zionist regime even more insolent in its actions,” said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson amid Reza Asefi, quoted by the state media. – Sapa-AFP