UN council compromises over Gaza report debate

UN: The Security Council brought forward on Wednesday a scheduled meeting on the Middle East after Libya demanded it urgently debate a UN report on the Gaza war that has angered Israel.

Diplomats said the council's monthly discussion of the Middle East, originally slated for Oct. 20, would now be held on Oct. 14, in a compromise with Libya - currently a council member - and its Arab allies including the Palestinians.

An investigation ordered by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council and led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone found that both the Israeli armed forces and Hamas militants committed war crimes in the December-January war. But the report, issued last month, was more critical of Israel.

The Human Rights Council had been due to vote on Friday on a resolution that would have condemned Israel's failure to cooperate with the inquiry and forwarded the report to the Security Council.

But action was postponed until March after US pressure aimed at getting the peace process back on track.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has come under sharp criticism at home for agreeing to the delay.

Wednesday's decision allows the Arabs to show they have raised the report in an open council debate and Western states to avoid a special meeting devoted to Goldstone.

Libya initially proposed such a meeting for Friday, Western diplomats said, whereas the Oct. 14 debate would be a routine affair at which any Middle East matter could be discussed.

The United States, which agrees with Israel that Goldstone's mandate was slanted against the Jewish state, has been anxious to prevent the report becoming a Security Council agenda item in its own right. Thursday, Reuters