During an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, permanent delegates to the 22-member pan-Arab forum called on the international community to swiftly act to end an Israeli siege on the Palestinian people and their leadership.

The participants reviewed the current situation in the occupied Palestinian lands in light of Israel's offensives against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

They termed the latest developments in the occupied Palestinian lands as "a dangerous shift" in an Israeli scheme to devastate the Palestinian National Authority and the stalled Mideast peace process.

During the gathering, the Palestinian side urged the international community to immediately intervene to end the ongoingIsraeli siege of Arafat.

The Israeli siege of Arafat's office building in his compound has entered the fourth day, while Israel has been under mounting pressure to end its siege.

Israeli bulldozers have destroyed all other buildings inside thecompound since Thursday to demand for the handover of 19 wanted Palestinians, who are holed up inside Arafat's office, the only intact building at Arafat's headquarters.

The Israeli army launched offensives against Arafat's compound and made an incursion into Gaza on Thursday to avenge two earlier suicide bombing attacks in Israel, which killed eight people and injured some 60 others.

(China Daily September 24, 2002)