The Security Council decided to extend an open debate on the Middle East to give members time to consider a call by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for an armed multinational force in the Palestinian territories.
According to AFP, the extension, declared at the outset of the discussion on Thursday by council president Sergei Lavrov, Russia's ambassador to the UN, averted an immediate clash over a proposal for a UN inquiry into deaths in the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin.
Diplomats earlier quoted the US ambassador, John Negroponte, saying he would veto an Arab-sponsored draft resolution asking Annan to investigate "the full scope of the tragic events that have taken place in the Jenin refugee camp." The draft also expressed shock at the "massacre" in Jenin, called on Israel to respect the 1949 Geneva Convention on protecting civilians in wartime, and called for "an international presence that could help provide better conditions on the ground".
The Israeli army said Thursday that "dozens" of people were buried under the rubble of about 100 houses in Jenin, but denied that its troops had carried out a massacre during three weeks of bitter fighting in the camp.
Palestinian officials have said at least 500 were killed in the fighting, at least half of them women and children. The Palestinian observer to the United Nations, Nasser Al-Kidwa, the first of 41 scheduled speakers, told the council that "regardless of the number of dead, a massacre was perpetrated in Jenin."
"We call upon you to consider and adopt the draft resolution," Al-Kidwa said.
Meanwhile, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller on Friday called for a United Nations-led investigation of the events in the Jenin camp to clarify whether Israeli forces have violated human rights.
Even if Israel has acted in self-defense it seems that its forces have gone too far, Moeller expressed.
He added he would discuss the proposal with his 14 European Union colleagues.
Denmark takes over the EU presidency from Spain in June.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also called for an international investigation into the Jenin events, suggesting the International Committee of Red Cross undertake the probe.
(Albawaba.com)
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