By Nazir Majally, Arab News Staff

MADRID/GAZA, 26 July — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of sabotaging the Middle East peace process by launching a deadly military raid in Gaza City that killed 15. Monday’s raid is proof positive that Israel “does not want a resolution, does not want peace,” Mubarak told a joint news conference in Paris with French counterpart Jacques Chirac before leaving for talks with Spanish leaders in Madrid.

The Egyptian leader lashed out at the hawkish Israeli premier, accusing him of wanting to “torpedo all initiatives” aimed at bringing Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table.

“Palestinian and (Islamic group) Hamas leaders were making efforts to find a way to end the violence, to be followed by reforms” within the Palestinian Authority, Mubarak noted, speaking in Arabic.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer — who personally approved the raid along with Sharon, according to Israeli public radio — recently visited Egypt to ask for Cairo’s help in stopping the violence, Mubarak said. “The Israeli government must use its brain and think rationally about whether it really wants to ensure the protection of the Israeli people and achieve peace in the region,” he said.

A US-built Israeli F-16 warplane bombed a building in densely-populated Gaza City on Monday, killing the military chief of Hamas along with his bodyguard and 13 civilians, including nine children. “There is something incomprehensible in all this: if they want to punish someone from Hamas, does that justify destroying an entire building and all its residents?” Mubarak asked.

Chirac reiterated France’s condemnation of the deadly raid, noting that he and Mubarak shared “identical views on most international issues, notably on those related to the Middle East.” The two leaders also rejected a call by US President George W. Bush to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in any future peace talks, saying his participation was vital to any agreement.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority was highly skeptical yesterday of conciliatory gestures from Israel following its deadly air raid that has focused world anger on the Jewish state, with many on the street brushing them aside and calling for deadly revenge. Israel’s offers to free up some of the $430 million in Palestinian customs duties it has frozen, to pull back from quieter areas of the West Bank and probe the air raid, met with little enthusiasm. “It’s propaganda,” said one senior PA official who asked not to be named.

Israel yesterday faced fierce criticism in the United Nations Security Council over the deadly airstrike in Gaza. Nation after nation said during a late-night debate that Tuesday’s attack was unacceptable and unwarranted. But US officials said Washington would oppose a draft resolution condemning the attack if it were put to a vote. The US decision meant Israel was unlikely to suffer anything more than a tongue-lashing in the Security Council. Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli attack as a terrorist act. Saudi Ambassador Fouzi Shubokshi said this act dealt a serious blow to the current efforts for peace in the region.

The Palestinians called Tuesday’s attack a war crime and Arab ambassadors urged the 15-member Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding troops leave the seven cities. But US Ambassador John Negroponte said past Council resolutions formed a “more than adequate basis to guide efforts to achieve a negotiated solution” and the world should focus on “constructive diplomatic efforts”.