(Releads, updates Egyptian, Saudi positions, adds statement)

CAIRO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - At a time when the death toll in Gaza is edging towards 1,000, deep divisions in the Arab world have been underscored by conflicting summit plans to discuss the crisis.

Regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both of which oppose the Islamist group Hamas which rules Gaza, called on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and said they would attend an Arab summit in Kuwait next week to discuss the matter, Saudi state media said.

Kuwait's proposal would merge a summit to discuss the 18-day Israeli offensive in Gaza with a planned Arab economic summit that leaders had been invited to earlier.

Qatar meanwhile asked the 22-member Arab League in Cairo to convene an emergency Arab summit on Gaza. Syria, which is sympathetic to the group that won the Palestinian elections in Gaza in 2006, has backed the Qatari request.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told reporters on Tuesday that the League had received 12 approvals for a summit on Gaza.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear such a summit would produce little in the way of results and would make Arab leaders appear ineffective, diplomats said.

Egyptian officials also say Qatar and Syria are looking for a way to embarrass Cairo.

Egypt initially said it favoured unofficial consultations among Arab leaders meeting in Kuwait on Jan. 18 for an economic summit, and later on Tuesday both it and Saudi Arabia said they would be present at the Kuwait summit to discuss Gaza.

"Saudi Arabia and Egypt will take part in the Arab summit in Kuwait to realise Arab interests and handling the Palestinian issue in a way that ends the aggression and realises peace for the Palestinian people," a statement carried by the Saudi state news agency said after talks between King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The statement did not specify the level of representation the countries would send.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the Arab League earlier expressed misgivings about the Qatari proposal, saying it was not "in the interest of Arab solidarity" to hold two summits at around the same time.

Protesters in Syria, Yemen and Iran have lashed out at Egypt for not opening its border with Gaza to let trapped Palestinians flee the onslaught, which has killed at least 971 people, some 400 of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Egypt says it will not open the crossing for normal traffic without the presence of the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces in Gaza Hamas routed in 2007. (Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Riyadh, Firouz Sedarat in Dubai, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers and Nadim Ladki in Beirut; Writing by Aziz El-Kaissouni)

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