CAIRO, Sept 7: Arab and Muslim opinion makers on Sunday condemned Israel’s bid to kill the spiritual leader of radical Palestinian movement Hamas, warning it threw oil on the fire threatening the US-backed roadmap for peace.

The imam of Al-Azhar, the world’s leading Sunni Muslim authority, warned that Israel’s attack on Sheikh Ahmad Yassin would only bolster Palestinian resolve to “defend their country, rights and freedom.

“Al-Azhar prohibits any attempt (to kill) civilians and firmly condemns this attack by the Israeli army against a paralyzed and ailing man of religion,” said Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, sheikh of the Cairo-based Al-Azhar.

Yassin, a 67-year-old wheelchair-bound cleric, was slightly wounded on Saturday in an Israeli air strike on a building in Gaza City where he was meeting fellow Hamas officials.

Tantawi urged the UN Security Council to “punish the aggressors and support the Palestinian people”, according to the statement carried by Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency.

Hisham Yussef, aide to Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, charged here that Israel was “again plunging the region into a cycle of violence” with its attack on Yassin.

The bid to kill Yassin in Gaza on Saturday “opens the door wide for new waves of violence and tension which are difficult to contain”, he added.

“It’s a new blow to efforts aimed at achieving peace and provides clear evidence of Israel’s lack of commitment to calming down the situation.”

The Arab League official asked the United States and the other members of the quartet which launched the roadmap for peace — the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — to intervene to stop the escalating violence.

Hamas’ Gaza-based political leader Abdelaziz al-Rantissi warned that the movement’s armed wing was capable of striking deep into Israel despite a clampdown on Palestinian territories after the attack on Yassin.

“The only choice for the Palestinian people is resistance,” he told Lebanon’s LBCI television.

The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, warned that the raid had “buried” the roadmap for peace, while Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher described it as a “real threat” to peace.

Newspapers in Gulf Arab countries were worried how the roadmap would be further undermined not only by the attack on Yassin but also by the resignation of Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas.

“Israel has managed to divide the Palestinian people,” the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan wrote, referring to the power struggle between Abbas and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.—AFP