Saudis warn "Israel" against repeating 33-day war

A high-ranking Saudi national security advisor has warned Tel Aviv against repeating the mistakes it made during the 2006 war on Lebanon.

Citing "informed sources", Al-Moltaqa news website reported that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi advisor, contacted Israeli officials to caution them.

The ‘Israeli' onslaughts on Gaza, which started on Saturday, have killed at least 387 Palestinians, while over 1,800 others are reported to be wounded.

The Saudi prince termed the situation in the Gaza Strip as grave and warned that his country could not stand the mounting pressure by Arab and regional nations for a long time.

He reportedly told ‘Israeli' officials that Saudi Arabia would do its best to delay the Arab summit with Egypt and even Jordan.

According to the sources, Prince Bandar met an ‘Israeli' official in Jordan on Sunday and apparently discussed the issue of Gaza.

The report came as Saudi sources said that in a telephone conversation with US President George W. Bush, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia informed the president that he would not ask ‘Israel' to halt its operations immediately.

Political analysts believe that Saudi Arabia and particularly Egypt would try to delay the summit by any means possible in order to provide ‘Israel' with the opportunity to destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

According to diplomatic sources, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has put pressure on his Arab counterparts form Persian Gulf littoral states to postpone the emergency Arab summit called over the Gaza issue.

The Saudi state-run news agency had earlier quoted Saud al-Faisal as saying that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had not made a decision on a call for an emergency meeting on Gaza.