RAMALLAH, West Bank Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat warned Israel on Thursday that it was playing with fire with its project to expand the boundaries of Bait-ul-Moqaddas. Arafat, chairing a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank town of Ramallah, called for an urgent reaction from the international community to save the peace process, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Acceptance of Israeli government maneuvers to break its commitments (to the peace process) have given it the green light to annex more land and destroy more Palestinian homes, he said. The plan for a greater Bait-ul-Moqaddas approved by the Israeli cabinet on Sunday involves annexing to Bait-ul-Moqaddas several townships to the west, boosting the city's Jewish population by another 30,000 and the creation of a super-municipality encompassing not only the city but also nearby settlements.

The Palestinian leadership has lost patience and the Palestinian people will not accept the loss of Bait-ul-Moqaddas, the Palestinian leadership said in a statement after the meeting. The statement said that there will be no peace without Bait-ul-Moqaddas, and that the Palestinian people will not stand with their arms folded while Israel fails to respect international conventions. Meanwhile, representatives of the 22 members of the Arab League called Thursday for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss Israel's widely criticized plan for a greater Bait-ul-Moqaddas. The Arab League calls for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to study this decision which will have very serious repercussions for the peace process as a whole and threatens to destroy it completely, Arab envoys to the league said after a meeting here.

The Israeli plan constitutes a flagrant violation of the terms of reference of the peace process, of Security Council resolutions underlining the special character of Bait-ul-Moqaddas and of the Geneva conventions, the envoys said in a statement. (AFP)