Jordan's parliament blasts attack on Gaza (Roundup)

Mar 2, 2008, 18:16 GMT

Amman - Jordan's lower house of parliament on Sunday condemned the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip as an act of 'systematic extermination' against the Palestinian people.

'We condemn and reject with the strongest words this appalling massacre being committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip,' the house said in a statement read out by speaker Abdul Hadi Majali.

'We are also surprised over this international silence towards this flagrant aggression and policy of systematic extermination,' it added.

The statement also condemned the United Nations stance, saying it 'failed to condemn this barbaric aggression', a reference to the Security Council, which met in an emergency session on Saturday but was unable to comment on the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Majali urged all parliaments and international organizations across the globe 'to adopt a firm stand' against the Israeli attack.

Thousands of Jordanians had demonstrated earlier Sunday in Amman and at Jordanian universities and Palestinian refugee camps against the ongoing Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip and called on the government to sever the peace treaty.

Demonstrators at a rally organized by the Muslim Brotherhood Movement shouted anti-Israeli slogans and held aloft placards against Israel, the United States and Denmark, where a dozen of newspapers recently reprinted cartoons deemed blasphemous to the Prophet Mohammed.

Demonstrators marched from the Trade Unions Complex to parliament and flags of Israel, the US and Denmark were set ablaze.