( dpa )- Jordan's Islamist lawmakers on Wednesday urged the government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel to protest its escalating attack on the Gaza Strip.
"The continuation of ties with the Zionist enemy provides a legal cover-up for its crimes," said Hamzeh Mansour , head of the parliamentary bloc of the Islamic Action Front (IAF).
He urged the government to summon the Jordanian ambassador in Israel as "a first step towards rupturing ties."
At least 23 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday and Wednesday in an Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the radical Islamist Hamas group, the major IAF Palestinian ally.
Mansour also urged the government to summon the US ambassador in Amman to protest against remarks made by President George W Bush during his Middle East tour, which he said had given "a green light" to the Israelis to carry out Gaza attacks.
"The American president's refusal of the right of return of Palestinian refugees and his call for adjustment of the armistice lines sought to support the Israeli viewpoint and represented a threat to the Jordanian state," Mansour said.
Jordan is home to about 1.9 million Palestinian refugees, who according to the 1949 UN National Assembly resolution 194 have the right to return to the homes they quit upon Israel's foundation in 1948.
The Jordanian government on Tuesday condemned the latest Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, dubbing it a "flagrant violation" against the Palestinian people.
Jordan concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, but an IAF- led coalition of Jordanian opposition parties aims to derail normalization of Amman's ties with the Jewish state.