G8 leaders call for end to Middle East fighting

World leaders agreed Sunday to deliver a “strong message” on the crisis in the Middle East, adopting a joint statement with four conditions they said were needed to halt the escalating violence.

“It is a strong message with a clear political content,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after negotiations at the summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in St Petersburg, Russia.

The leaders expressed their “deepening concern about the situation in the Middle East, in particular the rising civilian casualties on all sides and the damage to infrastructure,” the statement read.

Israeli warplanes began striking Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on Wednesday. The guerrillas have struck back at Israeli cities, and on Sunday fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the Israeli city of Haifa, dramatically escalating the conflict.

The G-8 leaders, in their statement, called for the Israeli soldiers abducted in Gaza and Lebanon to be released unharmed; the shelling of Israeli territory to end; Israeli military operations to cease and Israeli forces to withdraw early from Gaza; and for arrested Palestinian ministers and legislators to be released.