19 days on from the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the Palestinians has risen to more than 1,000, while on the other front, 13 Israelis have been officially declared dead. Yesterday, Israeli strikes focused on the central and southern Gaza Strip in the morning and on the north in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the legal quorum had not been reached to hold the emergency summit called for by Qatar. In particular, Mr. Moussa said only 14 out of the 15 countries necessary to hold the summit had given their go-ahead. He then went on to say that the issue over whether or not to hold the summit would be solved over the next few hours. The Syrian delegate at the League, Ambassador Yousef el-Ahmed, also affirmed that the UAE's joining the pro-summit party had not helped reach the quorum. Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm on the sidelines of the meeting paving the way for the Arab economic summit in Kuwait, he said Morocco had backed on its decision to take part on Wednesday morning, which decreased the number of pro-summit countries to 14. About the proposal to hold the emergency summit in Kuwait rather than in Qatar, Ambassador el-Ahmed said Damascus had no objection to holding such a summit in any Arab state. Al-Masry Al-Youm, though, has learnt from Arab sources that Libya, too, has pulled out of the pro-summit camp, thus reducing such countries to 13. Meanwhile, a house in the Egyptian side of the city of Rafah collapsed yesterday following the cracks caused by an Israeli bombardment of the borders between Egypt and Gaza. In the meantime, an Egyptian source described as positive the talks with the delegation of the Hamas movement on the Egyptian initiative, pointing out that Hamas had responded to the Egyptian's efforts to put an end to the bloodshed.
