Jordan warns Netanyahu against drag region into wider war

AMMAN - Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Monday it was unacceptable that the international community should allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to drag the Middle East into a wider regional war.

In remarks carried on state media, Safadi was quoted as telling his French counterpart Catherine Colonna during a phone call the danger of the spread of war was "rising by the day" with Israel continuing to wreak "death and destruction in Gaza."

Safadi added that Netanyahu's right-wing nationalist ruling coalition government sought to implicate the West directly in a regional war that would only "doom the region to more conflict and destruction".

"Israel's aggression against Gaza has exceeded all the human, legal and moral limits," Safadi said adding that there was no longer any pretext that prevented the UN Security Council from adopting a mandatory resolution to end the war.

The Jordanian official said the failure of the UN Security Council so far to impose a ceasefire "reflects double standards and a selective application of international law."

Safadi said Jordan and France stood against the mass displacement of Palestinians outside Gaza and agreed that Israel should allow home many of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the enclave it has now squeezed into the south near the Egyptian border who fled northern Gaza.