UN presses Israel to withdraw from Gaza

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 18: The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to deplore a deadly Israeli artillery attack in Gaza, six days after the United States vetoed a similar measure in the Security Council.

The assembly voted 156-7 with six abstentions to approve a resolution put forward by Arab states that also urged the Jewish state to immediately withdraw its troops from Gaza.

Palestinian U.N. Observer Riyad Mansour told the assembly that last Saturday's veto by Washington, Israel's closest ally, sent a message to the Jewish state ''that it can continue to commit crimes and acts of outright aggression with impunity,'' The November. 8 shelling of Beit Hanoun killed 19 civilians, including seven children and five women.

Voting ''no'' were the United States, Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Abstaining were Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

US Ambassador John Bolton said the assembly resolution, like the one before the Security Council, was a ''one-sided, unbalanced'' text that raised questions about the world body's ability to confront global problems.

''We believe that the United Nations is ill-served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is little more than a self-serving and polemical attack against Israel or the United States,'' he said.

Arab diplomats said they took particular umbrage at Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman for cautioning delegates a ''yes'' vote would make them ''accomplices to terror.'' ''The blood of poor innocents will be on your hands.'' Gillerman said, even as he acknowledged the attack had been ''a tragic accident ... which Israel deeply regrets.'' While the vote was largely symbolic, simply expressing the will of world governments, Arab states took the matter to the 192-nation assembly because Washington has no veto there.

FACT-FINDING MISSION

Gillerman said Palestinian rocket fire and the Palestinians' elected Hamas government, which refuses to acknowledge Israel or renounce violence, were to blame for the continuing Israeli military action in Gaza.

He also accused Qatar, the sole Arab member of the Security Council, of pressing for a quick vote last Saturday because it had learned of a major guerrilla attack in the works and feared it might embarrass Arab states if it occurred before a vote.

Qatari Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser flatly denied Gillerman's accusation, telling Reuters: ''That is not correct.

We don't know anything about that.'' The resolution called for the immediate cessation of all acts of violence and terror by both the Palestinian and Israeli sides and asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a fact-finding mission to look into the Beit Hanoun attack.

The call for a UN inquiry into the attack delayed assembly action for hours as the UN body's budget committee debated whether the effort would duplicate a similar mission ordered by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

''How may fact-finding missions does it take for the UN to screw in a lightbulb?'' asked Bolton.

In the end, the budget committee approved the new panel's estimated 0,000 budget by a vote of 143-5 with two abstentions.

REUTERS