The UN Security Council has scheduled rare consultations on the Middle East today in response to a Palestinian request.
Arab nations are demanding Israel be condemned for escalating attacks against civilians and the Palestinian Authority.
Israel this week hit Palestinian targets across the West Bank and Gaza Strip from air, land and sea in fierce raids, killing 18 Palestinians and striking close to Mr Yasser Arafat's office while he was in it.
Since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation begin in September 2000, the United States has blocked all but one effort for a council resolution. The Palestinians for the past year have lobbied for measures that would hold Israel accountable for its actions and send a monitoring mission to the West Bank and Gaza.
This time they are also expected to ask for a Security Council mission to the region, diplomats said.
Mr Hussein Hassouna, representing the League of Arab States, said: "We cannot leave this situation, deteriorating as it is on a daily basis, Israeli action becoming more brutal day after day, and the Security Council sitting idle and not doing anything about it".
In asking for the meeting, Ms Marwan Jilani, a Palestinian UN observer, said the Israeli government of Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon had intensified attacks on Palestinian targets "in a vicious cycle of reprisals and recriminations.
"We therefore call for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to consider this grave situation and to take immediate action," he wrote to Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, this month's council president.