(CNSNews.com) – The U.N.’s Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Thursday to discuss a controversial report accusing Israel of war crimes, after the Palestinian Authority secured sufficient support for the meeting from Islamic states and mostly leftist allies.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the Geneva-based HRC said the Palestinian request for the extraordinary meeting received the backing of 18 of the body’s 47 members. A minimum of 16 members, or one-third of the total, is required.

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York the session would likely continue on Friday, and end with a vote on a resolution.

This will be the 12th special session held by the three year-old council, and the sixth dealing with Israel. The Bush administration shunned the HRC, in part for what it regarded as a fixation on the Jewish state while other situations around the world were ignored or played down. The U.S. became a member this year.

As with the previous five Israel-centered special sessions, this week’s one will be held largely at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which controls almost one-third of the council’s seats.

Seeking the 16 votes needed, the P.A. received the backing of 12 of the council’s 15 OIC states, along with allies China, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Mauritius.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had expressed his support in a phone conversation with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas for the P.A. attempt to reopen debate on the “Goldstone report.”

The report’s recommendations could pave the way for Israel’s referral to the International Criminal Court over its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza last winter.

Early this month, the P.A. backed down under U.S. pressure and agreed to delay for six months a resolution endorsing the report, named for South African judge Richard Goldstone who headed a fact-finding mission to Gaza at the behest of the HRC.
 
The 575-page report found that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes. It recommended that unless they launch effective, independent investigations within six months, the allegations should be referred to ICC prosecutors in The Hague.

Israel, which says it launched the assault in response to years of Hamas rocket attacks, has warned that the explosive report could kill the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” and harm counter-terrorism efforts everywhere.

Thursday’s special session will be the first one in which the United States will participate.
 
At a regular council session late last month, the U.S. – concerned about the report’s possible impact on its attempts to restart Mideast peace talks – lobbied strongly against an OIC-sponsored draft resolution which endorsed the report in full.
 
The P.A. agreed to postpone the resolution but after coming under stinging attack at home and in the wider Mideast region, Abbas relented.
 
He said in a televised address at the weekend he wanted a special session “to vote on the resolution, in order to punish all those who committed the most brutal crimes against our children and women in Gaza.”

On Sunday, Abbas secured Ban’s support for the move.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed Monday never to permit Israelis to go before an international war crimes tribunal over the Gaza operation.

“We will not allow Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak, who sent our sons to war, to be summoned to the international court in The Hague,” he said in an address to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
 
At the time of the offensive, Olmert and Livni of the Kadima party were prime minister and foreign minister respectively and Labor leader Barak was defense minister – a post he holds again in Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition government.
 
Netanyahu said Israel would not accept having its leaders or soldiers treated as war criminals.
 
“The truth is exactly the opposite – Israel’s leaders and its army are those who defended the citizens of Israel from war criminals.”
 
“This distorted report, written by this distorted committee, undermines Israel’s right to defend itself,” he said. “This report encourages terrorism and threatens peace. Israel will not take risks for peace if it can’t defend itself.”
 
‘Use the weight of your Nobel peace prize’
 
Apart from the P.A. effort in Geneva, Abbas is also supporting a separate initiative by Libya to have the U.N. Security Council discuss the Goldstone report.
 
Libya, a non-permanent UNSC member, pressed for an emergency session, but settled for an agreement to bring forward a regular monthly discussion on the Middle East. Libya intends to bring up the Goldstone report during that meeting, now scheduled for Wednesday.
 
Ahead of the meeting, the New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the top U.N. body to use what it called “a historic opportunity” and “demand that the parties to the conflict punish those responsible for serious abuses.”

The group’s U.N. advocacy director, Steve Crawshaw, also said the U.S. should reverse its stance and “show that it will demand accountability for serious crimes in Gaza the same way it has elsewhere.”
 
“President Obama should use the weight and authority of his Nobel Peace Prize to put the peace process on the right track – and that is by demanding justice for serious crimes by all sides in the Gaza war,” he said.
 
Reconciliation pact postponed
 
Meanwhile continuing fallout in the Palestinian self-rule areas over the Goldstone report has caused an Egyptian-mediated attempt to reconcile Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah faction, which dominates the P.A., to be put on hold.
 
An agreement was supposed to have been signed on October 25 between the two rival organizations – which control Gaza and the West Bank respectively – but Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said one of the parties had requested a delay.
 
He did not identify the party concerned, but Hamas announced it was postponing the move because of Abbas’ decision to hold off on the resolution at the HRC.
 
“The current atmosphere is one of outrage and anger because the postponement of the vote on Goldstone’s report,” senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan told the Palestinian news agency Ma’an. “Time is not right for a reconciliation deal.”
 
P.A. and Fatah figures have accused Hamas of exploiting the issue to score political points and weaken Abbas.