RABAT (AFP) – A group of lawyers launched a legal bid Monday to have senior Israeli figures arrested if they ever step foot in Morocco over the Jewish state's offensive in the Gaza Strip 18 months ago, a spokesman said.

"The complaint is against Israeli officials who led the attack against Gaza at the time," a spokesman for the lawyers, Khalid Soufiani, told AFP.

The complaint, filed with the chief prosecutor in Rabat, accuses ex-premier Ehud Olmert, ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak of breaching laws to protect civilians and anti-terror legislation, Soufiani said.

The group who filed the complaint includes French lawyer Liliane Glock, American Stanley Cohen and three Moroccans, Abderrahim Jamai, Abderrahman Benameur and Mustapha Ramid.

If the prosecutor accepts the complaint, those named face arrest if they come to Morocco, said Soufiani.

"We don't know if the chief prosecutor will accept our complaint and follow it up," said Soufiani.

More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the three-week offensive in the tiny Palestinian territory of Gaza which erupted in late December 2008.

In November 2009, dozens protested the presence of Livni, who is now leader of the main opposition Kadima party, at a forum in Tangier organised by a thinktank.

Livni cancelled a trip to Britain last December for fear of being arrested after a court issued the warrant following an application by Palestinian activists over the conflict in the Hamas-run coastal territory.

Morocco is one of the rare Arab countries to receive Israeli officials despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania are the only Arab states to have forged full diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.