Death of Palestinian baby provokes 'immense disgust' in Egypt

Egyptians reacted with "immense disgust" and a sense of powerlessness here Wednesday to the killing of a Palestinian baby whose photograph was prominently displayed in newspapers here.

The photo of the four-month-old girl, Iman Hiju, who was killed in Israeli shelling on Monday in the Gaza Strip, has "provoked immense disgust in Egyptian public opinion," opposition MP Munir Fakhry Abdel Nur said.

"It has shocked everyone," said Abdel Nur, who is a member of the liberal Wafd party and head of the tiny opposition in the Egyptian parliament.

"The drama is that it seems that everyone is powerless. The US administration looks completely lost, the Europeans and Russians are powerless. We don't know what string to pull to calm things down," he added.

The parliament, or National Assembly, condemned the killing of the girl as a violation of human rights, according to a statement reported in Wednesday's press.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government should "not continue, and Israel must understand that it must integrate into the region," Abdel Nur added.

Meanwhile, the editor of the governement daily Al-Gomhoriya, Samir Ragab, blamed the Arabs for being indirectly to blame for the girl's death because of their passivity.

The daily harvest of death of Palestinian children has become something "normal" and happens without Arabs worrying about it, wrote Ragab.

"The bloodletting of Iman, her Palestinian sisters, their mothers, and their fathers is also ignored by the 'free' press in the United States, as if it were inevitable," Ragab added.

"Where are you Arabs? Why don't you move to form a powerful lobby?" the editorialist wrote. "Why is it so difficult for (Arabs) to unite?" Other editorialists asked who could avenge the girl's death.