CAIRO Organizers of an Egyptian film festival said Saturday they have refused to screen a U.S.-Israeli production due to the Jewish state's "violence" against the Palestinians.

Chairman Mohammed Saleh of the Alexandria International Film Festival told AFP that the film ***Area K****, a documentary about Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip directed by Ramon Bloomberg, was "biased toward the Israelis."

"Israel will not be allowed to take part in the festival as long as it continues its violence, assassinations, siege and eviction of the Palestinian Arab people at the hands of Israeli generals and settlers," Saleh said.

It is the tenth year in a row that the festival has rejected an Israeli film, he added. The festival runs from September 5 to 11 this year and will screen 65 films from 37 countries.

***Area K***, which has been bought by Israeli television, follows the lives of Palestinian fishermen who make a deal with Israeli settlers to allow them to fish in Israeli waters, production company Wildfist said on its Internet site.

Wildfist bills the film as the story of "an unprecedented coexistence through mutual need and the universal language of the sea."

Egyptian unionists and intellectuals have stepped up calls for a boycott of anything Israeli since violence erupted between Palestinians and the Jewish state last September.