Israeli 'faced London arrest on war crimes charges'

The former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip today said he was warned by diplomats not to disembark from an aircraft after landing in London, after a tip-off British police were waiting to arrest him on war crimes charges.

Reserve Maj.-Gen. Doron Almog said he arrived in London yesterday on a El Al flight, for what to have been three days of meetings with Jewish communities aimed at raising funds for a centre in Israel for brain-damaged children.

Almog said he was told a British Muslim group had filed an allegation of war crimes arising from his command of the military in Gaza from the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000 until July 2003.

During his term of office Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of a Hamas leader, killing the man, an assistant and 14 civilians, nine of them children.