Muslim states, following the lead of the Arab League, have agreed to halt political contacts with Israel to pressure it to end eight months of deadly clashes with the Palestinians.
The 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said in a statement at the end of a one-day emergency meeting in Qatar that the group decides to halt all political contacts with the Israeli government so long as the aggression and blockade against the Palestinian people and its national Authority continues..."
The 22-point statement also called for a halt in normalising ties with Israel and for the closure of its missions and offices in member states.
The 22-member Arab League had decided on a similar step at a meeting in Cairo this week, placing pressure on the OIC members to do the same.
Earlier this afternoon the Organisation had urged the United States to take urgent action to halt Israeli "aggression" against the Palestinians, at an emergency ministerial meeting in the Qatari capital today.
Qatar's emir, as president of the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), called on "the American administration and President George W Bush to intervene urgently" to bring an end to the violence.
"It is not possible to stay silent about the Israeli aggressions," said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, whose country convened the one-day talks on the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
"I propose ... to work for the holding of an extraordinary meeting of the (UN) Security Council to examine the serious situation in the Palestinian territories," he said.
Sheikh Hamad said an Islamic ministerial committee would tour the capitals of the five major powers in the Security Council and of the European Union.
Also in the opening session, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat slammed what he called the UN's "total impotence" in the face of mounting deaths in the Palestinian territories, pinning the blame on the United States.
"Who is imposing this silence in the Security Council ... at the expense of our people and our martyrs?" Arafat asked.
Arafat vowed that the intifada, or uprising, would continue "until the Palestinian flag is hoisted in Jerusalem."
Israel was being "protected" despite "shirking" peace accords signed with the Palestinians, he charged, and the international community was neglecting its duty to send "a protection force or observers" to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A total of 569 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed since the intifada broke out last September.
Arafat underlined his commitment to "a just and comprehensive peace on all tracks" of the Arab-Israeli conflict, while backing an Egyptian-Jordanian initiative to halt the violence and the Mitchell commission report.
He renewed a call for a new Middle East summit to be held along the same lines as the US-brokered summit last October in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but this time with the OIC and Russia also invited.
An OIC drafting committee later worked on a final statement to be submitted to the participants of the Doha meeting.
Several countries, including Egypt and some Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, kept their foreign ministers away from the meeting to protest at the fact that an Israeli trade office was still operating in Doha.
A total of 46 member states turned up for the session. AFP