UN Security Council members held an emergency session early today to discuss an Israeli attack on a suspected Palestinian training camp north of Damascus as tensions in the Middle East reached the boiling point. Syria demanded that the council condemn the most serious Israeli attack on that country in three decades, calling it a "flagrant violation by Israel of international laws and a new and serious escalation" in the tense Middle East. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned of escalating tensions in the wake of the Israeli airstrike, spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "The secretary general strongly deplores the Israeli air strike on Syrian territory earlier today," Eckhard said in a written statement. A Syrian diplomatic source said Damascus was preparing a draft resolution condemning Israel. "We are working on this text, which can be presented by the Arab group of the council," the source said, declining to provide further details. "We have made a strategic option for peace. This is what we want," Imad Mustafa, Syria's acting ambassador in the United States, told CNN. Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, criticised the council for rushing into session on the eve of the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur while ignoring Saturday's bombing in Israel, calling it a double standard that puts the world body's credibility at risk. "For Syria to call a Security Council meeting is as if (Osama) bin Laden had asked for a Security Council meeting after 9-11," Gilleman said. Earlier, Israel said it had launched an air raid overnight on what it said was a training camp some 16km northwest of Damascus used by the Palestinian armed groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas. It was the deepest military strike by Israel inside Syria since the Yom Kippur war 30 years ago. The area was sealed off by Syrian authorities and reporters and photographers stopped from entering. Damascus said the attack hit a civilian area, causing material damage. A Syrian official in Syrian-controlled eastern Lebanon said that Israel's target was an abandoned training camp used by a leftist Palestinian group. Hamas, vowed to exact revenge for the air strike on what it said was a Palestinian refugee camp. It said it had started by firing 10 mortar bombs toward a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Syrian Ambassador to United Nations Fayssal Mekdad speaks to reporters after Security Council meeting called by Syria and the Arab League at United Nations in New York Sunday, Oct. 5, 2003 (AP Photo/David Karp)