The deteriorating situation in the Middle East was set to dominate talks between foreign ministers of the G8 nations in Rome today as they prepare for a summit in the Italian city of Genoa.
Ministers from the Group of Eight nations - United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy Japan and Russia - will strive for a common position in light of the escalating violence between the Israelis and Palestinians which has all but killed off a US-brokered ceasefire, in place since June 13.
Israel killed four Palestinians in an air-raid on Bethlehem yesterday that destroyed a house packed with women and children and raised talk that their bitter conflict was moving a step closer to war.
The mid-afternoon helicopter assault killed at least two militants from the radical Hamas movement and wounded 14 people, including a young girl who lost her arm, hospital soucres said.
The Israeli army said the target of their attack was a military leader of Hamas, which has claimed the majority of deadly anti-Israeli attacks over the past few years, and that the raid had "prevented with certainty a terror attack against Israelis."
A mortar bomb was fired on Jerusalem later yesterday, in what the army said was the first such attack since the eruption of the Palestinian intifada, triggering a retaliatory helicopter raid on a nearby West Bank village.
A second mortar attack was reported by the army later Tuesday, prompting Israeli to deploy reinforcements of tanks and troops in the West Bank, including around Bethlehem.
Washington reiterated its call for restraint, with State Department spokesman Philip Reeker saying it was "within the power of the parties to bring the level of the violence down".
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has called on the G8 leaders, who start their three-day summit in the Italian port city of Genoa on Friday - to take the initiative to "preserve the peace process".
The G8 foreign ministers were set to meet this afternoon at the Villa Madama, near Rome, with a second session planned for tomorrow.
AFP