UN Security Council weighs urgent meeting on Gaza

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 (Reuters) The U N Security Council agreed today to discuss a request by Arab and Muslim nations for an emergency meeting on the soaring violence in Gaza, after initially snubbing the request.

The plea for an urgent meeting would be considered by the 15-nation council in a closed-door session later in the day, council diplomats said.

Council members yesterday had sat in silence after Qatar, the U N body's sole Arab member, presented the plea for an urgent meeting, the diplomats said.

''There was no support for it,'' U S Ambassador John Bolton said on Wednesday when asked about the initial response by the council, which under the U.N. Charter is responsible for dealing with threats to international peace and security.

The Palestinian Authority had made an initial plea to the council on Monday, and this was followed up a day later by letters from the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the 22-member Arab League.

The request came near the end of a weeklong Israeli military operation in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun that killed at least 52 Palestinians, more than half of them militants. The operation was aimed at curbing rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets launched by Palestinian militants from within Gaza.

Israeli forces pulled out of Beit Hanoun yesterday.

But an Israeli artillery attack launched today killed 18 Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza, according to local officials and witnesses, prompting swift vows of retaliation from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Palestinian U N Observer Riyad Mansour said the Palestinian Authority wanted the council to adopt a resolution calling for a mutual cease-fire in Gaza and for U N observers to be sent into the area to enforce the cease-fire agreement, as was done in southern Lebanon after the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah that ended in August.

The United States, Israel's closest ally and a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power, typically argues against council intervention in the West Asia conflict as ineffective in ending the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

Reuters AKJ DB2341