The White House on Sunday led calls for an end to violence in Gaza where a massive Israeli assault has killed scores of Palestinians, provoking international outrage and accusations of war crimes.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has vowed to continue the ground and air operation aimed at halting rocket fire that has killed 70 Palestinians since Saturday, raising fears about the future of Mideast peace talks.
"The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume," US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters at President George W. Bush's ranch in Texas.
The European Union criticised Israel's "disproportionate use of force", while the UN Security Council, meeting in an emergency session, urged all sides to "immediately cease all acts of violence". Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas suspended all contacts with Israel over the assault, calling it an "open slaughter of our people", while Iran compared the operation to the Holocaust of Jews in the Second World War.
In Brussels, EU president Slovenia urged Israel to "exercise maximum restraint and refrain from all activities that endanger civilians", while also calling for an "immediate end" to Palestinian rocket attacks and any other actions that undermine the peace process.
"The peace process should not be interrupted ... The presidency urges all sides to advance on the path to a negotiated settlement," it said. Italy called for an end to Israel's attacks and rocket fire from Gaza, warning the violence threatened peace talks, while Spain also expressed concern over civilian casualties.
At the United Nations, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council chair, said council members were "deeply concerned about the loss of civilian life" and condemned the escalation of violence.
He said it "must not be allowed to deter the political process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority aimed at establishing two states - Israel and Palestine - living side by side in peace and security". Traditional Palestinian allies were fiercely critical of Israel's actions.
Jordan said Israel was violating international law, while the secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, described Israel's actions as a "heinous war crime".
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his assertion that "the real Holocaust was in Palestine", while a Saudi Arabian official compared Israel's actions to Nazi war crimes.
"Saudi Arabia calls on the international community to... work to stop the Israeli war machine and prevent it from carrying out mass killings and destroying the rights and property of the Palestinian people," said the unidentified official quoted by the official SPA news agency.
Mauritania, one of three Arab League countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, expressed "great concern" over the military operation which it said was a "collective punishment" that could destroy peace talks.
The prime minister of Turkey, another of Israel's few Muslim allies, warned it was "not possible for us to approve of the recent inhumane practice in Gaza" in which civilians were being killed with "disproportionate use of force".
"There is no humane or legal justification for the attacks in Gaza," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech. In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI urged the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to "stop this spiral of violence, unilaterally and without conditions".
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