The United States yesterday called on all sides in the Middle East to exercise restraint after Israel bombed a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, its first attack on a Syrian position in Lebanon since 1996.
The strike, about 22 miles east of Beirut, which killed three Syrian soldiers, was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli soldier on Saturday on the Lebanese-Israeli border by Hizbullah guerrillas.
"The United States is urging all parties to exercise restraint. It's another reminder that we need to end the cycle of violence in the Middle East," the White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said.
The raid, which Israel said was a message to Syrian leaders to stop supporting Hizbullah guerrillas in their fight against the Jewish state, put in doubt a US-hosted meeting yesterday between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs.
In its first official comment, Syria said the attack was a "dangerous escalation" that would destabilise the region.
"Syria considers the aggression as a challenge to the will of the Arab nation . . . Syria holds Israel responsible for this dangerous escalation and reserves its right to defend itself against any aggression," an official spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, expressed deep concern about the situation and called for a halt to further violence.
"The German government is extraordinarily concerned about the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East. The existing situation there is very serious," he said.
"The German government urgently appeals to all parties to abstain from further military action and to avoid bloodshed."
He added: "A just and longterm Middle East peace can only be reached through a cessation of the spiral of violence, moderation from all sides and a return to the negotiating table."
France expressed concern yesterday and called on "all sides" to end the violence.
In a statement that underscored mounting worries in Paris over Middle East violence, the French foreign ministry warned of a "risk of escalation from military operations" in the region.
The Palestinian militant movement Hamas denounced Jordan for sending its foreign minister on a rare visit to Israel and condemned an Israeli strike on Lebanon as an "aggression" against all Arabs and Muslims.
The visit to Jerusalem by the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Mr Abdulillah al-Khatib, is "a deviation from the position of the Arab peoples calling for a boycott of the Zionist enemy", Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, said in a statement in Gaza.
Mr Khatib arrived in Israel as the first high-ranking Arab official to visit since Mr Ariel Sharon was inaugurated prime minister last month, and since the eruption of the Palestinian intifada almost seven months ago.
Hamas said his visit, along with continued US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian security talks, "come at the moment that [Israel] is intensifying its terrorism against our people, stretching to Lebanon."
The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Mr Usama Hamdan, called the strike "not only an aggression against Syria and Lebanon, but also an aggression against the Arab and Muslim nation.
"We consider our battle against this enemy a single battle until the liberation of every inch of occupied Arab land and until we regain all our violated rights," said Mr Hamdan, adding that Israel "only understands the language of force".
The radical movement also accused the US of giving its "green light" for Israel's raids.