A group of Egyptian People's Assembly members (lower house of parliament) on Tuesday urged Israel to take actions to punish those involved in the alleged killing of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 war.

A joint panel of the Arab, Foreign Relations and Human Rights Affairs Committees threatened to review all economic relations and agreements with Israel if it fails to bring the perpetrators to justice, saying the flagrant violations of international charters and norms should never pass unpunished, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.

Egyptians were outraged by an Israeli documentary film aired last week on an Israeli public TV, which said that an army unit led by Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, now Israel's infrastructure minister, may have killed 250 prisoners of war (POW) in Sinai rather than transferring them to POW camps during the 1967 war.

"The true ugly face of the Israeli military institution is now exposed. The Israeli military institution is practicing state terrorism in the most heinous form," MENA quoted the panel members as saying in the fiery document.

They also called on the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to swiftly urge the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to bring to trial the perpetrators of such crimes as war criminals.

In a relevant development, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit asked his Israeli counterpart Tzibi Livni to open a probe into the incident and keep Egypt posted on the progress, MENA reported from Brussels, where the two were holding talks with European Union officials.

Ben-Eliezer has denied the allegations that his army unit killed 250 Egyptian prisoners of war. Nevertheless, he cancelled a planned visit on Monday to Egypt due to the controversy sparked by the incident.

Source: Xinhua