The meeting was set for 2000 GMT, and comes at Syria's request.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "strongly deplores" the strike, said UN spokesman Fred Eckhard.

"The secretary general strongly deplores the Israeli air strike on Syrian territory earlier today," Eckhard said in a written statement.

Eckhard said Annan was urging all parties in the region "to respect the rules of international law and to exercise restraint."

Arab League's chief Amr Mussa called the raid "state terrorism" as he summoned its ambassadors for an emergency meeting.

"The raid amounts to state terrorism," Mussa told reporters. "It betrays Israel's aggressive intentions toward the Arabs, broadening the conflict in the region and distances us from the path of peace."

Mussa said he called for the emergency Arab meeting later Sunday after consulting with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara and other Arab foreign ministers about the raid.

Syria reacted furiously to the air strike, accusing Israel of "flagrantly" violating international law.

The leading Palestinian militant group Hamas meanwhile vowed it would attack Israel "in the heart and quickly" in retaliation.

German and Egyptian leaders Gerhard Schroeder and Hosni Mubarak were the most outspoken, with the German chancellor saying the violation of the sovereignty of a third country "cannot be accepted," while the Egyptian president slammed the "aggression ... against a brother country."

France condemned the air attack overnight Saturday outside Damascus, the deepest inside Syrian territory since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, as "an unacceptable violation of international law," and the United States urged both sides to show restraint.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi condemned it saying it "posed a threat" to the whole Middle East region.

"By resorting to such aggressions, the Zionist regime posed a threat to the security of the Middle East region. The security of the Middle East and the entire world is being put at risk," Kharazi said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

The "Israeli attack against Syria is an attempt to divert public opinion from the sufferings of the Palestinian people, arising from the occupation of their country," he said.

Schroeder was the first European leader to react. "Violating the sovereignty of a third country complicates further the (peace) process, that's why what happened in Syria cannot be accepted," Schroeder, on a tour of Arab countries, told a news conference in Cairo with Mubarak.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher condemned an "aggression against a brother country which could drag the entire region into a downward spiral of violence," the official news agency Petra reported.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a statement to the AFP denounced the aggression.

"This dangerous escalation will lead the region once more to new disasters and aggravate instability," the veteran Palestinian leader said.

Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah termed it a "flagrant aggression."

"The raid constitutes a flagrant Israeli aggression on the territories of sisterly Syria and a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and international community decisions," Sheikh Sabah said in a statement.

"This serious military escalation will thwart the peace process, foil efforts to revive it and threaten security and stability in the Middle East," the Kuwaiti premier added.

The US government, which considers Syria a "terrorist" state, urged both sides to avoid stoking tensions.

"At this time we urge both Israel and Syria to avoid actions that heighten tensions or could lead to hostilities," said a top official who requested anonymity.

"We have repeatedly told the government of Syria that it is on the wrong side in the war on terror and that it must stop harboring terrorists," the official added. "That is still our view."

Britain appealed for both sides to exercise restraint in the latest escalation in violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories, where a three-year uprising has killed more than 3,500 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

"In a Middle East rocked by crises, it is everybody's responsibility, especially that of states in the region, to not add to the instability and tensions. The struggle against terrorism, to which France is resolutely committed, must be carried out in line with international law," the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russia meanwhile feared an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Developments in the situation in the Middle East give rise to concern and growing disquiet," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee also slammed the Israeli strike

"We strongly condemn it (the Israeli action)," he said.

"The cycle of violence and counter-violence should stop," said Vajpayee.