Israel's attack on Gaza City on Monday which killed 15 people was a deliberate attempt to sabotage attempts to end violence in the region, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has said.

Mr Mubarak said the air strike on a residential area came as Palestinian initiatives aiming to halt violence against Israel were under way.

I just don't understand how in trying to kill a Hamas leader, they have attacked an entire building which has been destroyed with everyone inside, including children

Hosni Mubarak

Israel has rejected suggestions that it was seeking to wreck such efforts.

Mr Mubarak is currently visiting Europe as part of Arab government efforts to halt Israeli-Palestinian violence.

King Abdullah of Jordan has also begun a European tour to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

In Monday's attack, targeting a leading Hamas militant Sheikh Salah Shahada, an Israeli F-16 jet dropped a one-tonne guided bomb on the apartment block where he was staying.

Only four of those killed were in the targeted house. The rest - including nine children - were in neighbouring buildings.

Speaking after talks in Paris with President Jacques Chirac, the Egyptian leader said the Gaza air raid occurred against a background of various Palestinian initiatives, some involving Hamas, to end the violence.

"Apparently the Israeli prime minister is not satisfied by these initiatives and these efforts," he said. "And he said to himself 'I will launch this air strike on Gaza to sabotage these efforts'."

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres visits Paris next week

This, he said, was an indication that the Israelis did not want peace. What Mr Sharon seemed to fail to appreciate, however, was that without peace, Israelis would be exposed to violence, killing and explosions.

"I wish the (Israeli) government would use its brain a little bit and think practically and wisely to protect the Israeli people and to establish peace in the region."

Critical US role

For his part, President Chirac said he and Mr Mubarak shared identical views on the Middle East.

Apart from their forthright condemnations of the Israeli raid on Gaza, both reject Washington's notion that it is time to find a new Palestinian leader to replace Yasser Arafat.

But correspondents say that with France and Europe in general more clearly aligned than ever with the Arab side in the Middle East dispute, their influence remains limited.

Palestinians have called the Gaza attack a "war crime" and it has been condemned by the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan - who has also denounced Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians.

Israeli has claimed it was acting in self defence against a man who had targeted civilians, but later expressed regret over the civilian deaths.

Government ministers also said they would not have ordered the attack if they had known the likely extent of the casualties.