Geneva - The United Nations Human Rights Council said Tuesday it will hold a special session to debate the war crimes report of Justice Richard Goldstone later this week. The special session would be held at the request of the Palestinian diplomatic mission to Geneva, with the support of 18 out of the 47 members of the rights body.
Countries supporting the debate include China, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The session was scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon and continue into Friday, the UN confirmed.
European Union members were to meet and try to reach a common position on the report as opinions within the bloc remained varied, diplomats said.
The US, a member of the rights council, has called the report "deeply flawed" but said investigations into the serious allegations should be conducted.
The draft resolution, Palestinian officials said, will support adopting the Goldstone report in its entirety, including the recommendation that if the parties to the war in Gaza last December and January do not investigate themselves fairly, the International Criminal Court should take up the case.
Both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling the coastal enclave, were accused in Goldstone's findings of committing war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during the three weeks of fighting.
According to rights groups, the violence killed approximately 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and caused 13 Israeli fatalities, including three civilians.
The issue of Jerusalem will also feature in the debate and resolution, Imad Zuheiri with the Palestinian mission, told the German Press Agency dpa.
Goldstone headed a four member UN-appointed fact finding team into the events of the war. Israel has called the report biased against the Jewish State.
Addressing Israel's parliament at the opening of its winter session Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday in Jerusalem that he would not let the country's leaders or soldiers be put on trial at the ICC in The Hague for war crimes.
During the last regular session of the council two weeks ago, the Palestinian Authority (PA) pushed for deferring a resolution on the report to March, drawing criticisms from several key fronts.
Diplomats said the PA came under pressure to defer the vote from US officials, who felt that action on the war crimes investigation could hamper attempts to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Hamas and other rival political parties slammed President Mahmoud Abbas' decision. The Islamist movement said the deferral was jeopardizing a long-awaited rapprochement with Abbas' Fatah faction.
Officially, the PA said at the time that it wanted a broad-based consensus on the report at the council and so deferred the vote to gain time for garnering further support.
