Members of the UN Security Council will meet to discuss Libya’s request for an emergency session on a report that claimed war crimes were committed by Israel during last year’s offensive on Gaza, says Al Jazeera.

Le Luong Minh, Vietnam’s ambassador who holds the council presidency this month, said he had scheduled closed-door talks for Wednesday after receiving a request from Libya, the only Arab member on the 15-nation council.

Libya circulated a letter on Tuesday on behalf of the UN Arab group urgently seeking “an emergency meeting” of the council to consider the Goldstone report, Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s deputy ambassador, said.

The UN Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, Switzerland, postponed a vote last Friday on a resolution that would have condemned Israel’s failure to co-operate with its investigation into the December-January war.

Israel launched a major offensive on the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip in December 2008, saying it wanted to stop rockets fired by Hamas into its territory.

At least 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died during the three-week war.

Israel’s Haaretz reports that last week Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas withdrew Palestinian support for a vote in the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to have the report sent to the UN General Assembly for possible action. Such a vote would have been a first of many steps toward possible war crimes tribunals.

Abbas made the decision under heavy U.S. pressure, Palestinian and Israeli officials have said. U.S. officials told Palestinian leaders that a war crimes debate would complicate efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to participants in such meetings.

Now, following violent protests and clashes in the West Bank, a member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ inner circle said Wednesday that the Palestinian leadership made a mistake by suspending action on the U.N. report on Gaza war crimes.

On Wednesday, senior Abbas adviser Yasser Abed Rabbo told the Voice of Palestine radio that the Palestinian leadership had erred.

“What happened is a mistake, but [it] can be repaired,” said Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “We have the courage to admit there was a mistake.”

In Gaza, public outrage at Abbas reached a new level on Wednesday, when hundreds of posters criticizing the Palestinian president appeared in public areas around Gaza City. Abbas and Hamas have been bitter rivals since the Islamic group violently seized control of Gaza from pro-Abbas forces in June 2007.

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