'Iraq war would be Nakba catastrophe for Arabs'

A US war against Iraq would hurt the Arabs as much as the creation of Israel in 1948 did, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said in an interview published here on Thursday.

In his remarks to the Egyptian government newspaper Al Ahram, Arafat also said an upcoming meeting of Palestinian factions in Egypt was aimed at forging unity rather than ending the uprising against Israeli occupation.

A war in Iraq "will not just have repercussions for Iraq, but the entire region will be affected as it was affected by the events in Palestine in 1948," Arafat warned.

Known as the Nakba (catastrophe), the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the defeat of hostile Arab armies by the new Jewish state led to a massive exodus of Palestinian refugees to neighboring Arab states.

"It should not be ruled out that one might see a new Sykes-Picot," Arafat warned.

Signed in 1916, the secret French-British Sykes-Picot carved up the non-Turkish provinces of the Ottoman Empire ahead of its collapse two years later.

Palestine and Iraq were controlled by Britain, and Syria and Lebanon by France.

The Arabs blame the Sykes-Picot accord for all the conflicts which have ravaged the region since then.

Reuters adds: Israeli forces backed by helicopter gunships battled gunmen in two Gaza refugee camps Thursday after killing four Palestinians who the army said were on their way to attack Jewish settlements.

In a separate incident, police said they killed a Palestinian gunman who broke into a home in the Israeli village of Maor, three miles from the West Bank. An Israeli couple in the house escaped when his assault rifle jammed.

The army said it sent infantry and armour, supported by assault helicopters, into the Nusairat and Bureij refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip as part of its "continuing battle against terrorism."

The camps are considered strongholds of Palestinian militants waging a more than two-year-old uprising for independence.

Ambulance workers said several Palestinians were wounded before Israeli forces withdrew several hours later.

The violence came amid US calls for Middle East calm to avoid jarring Washington's plans for possible war on Iraq.

Called to arms from mosque loudspeakers, gunmen flocked to the streets of Nusairat and Bureij and exchanged shots with Israeli troops on the outskirts of the camps, scattering occasionally under fire from helicopters overhead.