Miliband urged to support Israel's stand on Gaza
JERUSALEM Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday told her visiting British counterpart David Miliband that she expected the international community to support the Jewish state's tough stand in Gaza.
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"Israel can not just watch its citizens being attacked... The international community can not turn a blind-eye," Livni said during talks with Miliband.
The British foreign secretary arrived in the region on Sunday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders amid renewed violence in and around the Gaza Strip that threatened to end a five-month-old calm in the area.
Palestinian militants in the Hamas-controlled territory continued to fire rockets against southern Israel on Sunday, wounding one person after four militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.
Miliband, who will tour the rocket-battered Israeli town of Sderot together with Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday, said he was "looking forward to showing solidarity in my visit tomorrow."
He, nevertheless, did not echo calls from the United Nations and the European Union for Israel to ease its crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip that has deprived the densely-populated area of vital foodstuff and goods.
Miliband earlier met outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to discuss efforts to launch direct Israeli-Syrian peace talks, ahead of the foreign secretary's visit to Damascus this week, a British embassy spokeswoman told AFP.
Last month Olmert asked the Turkish government to present the Syrians with a proposal to resume indirect talks which were put on hold after the premier announced on July 30 he would step down over a corruption scandal.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has yet to reply to the proposal.
Miliband was also due to meet right-wing opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who together with Livni are the two frontrunners to head a new government in Israel's February elections.
The visit also comes amid growing tensions after Britain's recent bid to press its European Union partners to stop Israeli exports to the bloc that are manufactured or largely manufactured in Jewish settlements, in what London sees as a breach of a 2000 free trade agreement between the two sides and an encouragement to settlement expansion.
According to the spokeswoman, Miliband and Olmert had "a clear exchange of views" on the issue that has raised heavy criticism in Israel.
"The foreign secretary made it clear that Britain was not trying to move the goalposts on the agreement but rather to follow up on representations which have been made to us on the workings of the system," she said.
Israel has also expressed concerns over the threat of war crimes prosecutions in Britain against senior Israeli army officers.
In September 2005, Major General Doron Almog narrowly missed arrest by police at London's Heathrow airport when he flew straight back to Israel following a tip-off that he faced detention on suspicion of war crimes over the destruction of more than 50 homes in Gaza in 2002.
After Israel, Miliband will go on to West Bank talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of his efforts to bolster support for the peace negotiations relaunched in the US city of Annapolis last November that have failed to achieve their target of an agreement by the end of this year.
"I will reinforce the UK's support for the Annapolis peace process and a viable two-state solution when I meet Israeli and Palestinian representatives," Miliband has said.
"I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge or the size of the task to realise the goal of a two-state solution -- a goal shared by the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, as well as the entire international community.
"It is precisely the scale of this challenge that makes our engagement all the more necessary."
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