UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17: The UN General Assembly with overwhelming majority adopted a resolution on Friday night calling for an immediate, durable ceasefire in Gaza. It rejected a more critical and hard hitting text proposed by a group of Muslim countries, Eucudor, Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American states.

Although the resolution is non-binding, the diplomats who supported it said the overwhelming majority in favour presented a moderate viewpoint that would strengthen Egyptian mediating efforts in the Gaza crisis.

The numbers on the electronic board showed 142 countries in favour, four opposed and eight abstaining. However, the exact figures were not immediately clear as several countries said their votes had not registered due to electrical faults.

Voting against were Israel, the United States and the Pacific island of Nauru, which believed the resolution was biased against Israel. Venezuela, which thought it was too soft on the Jewish state, was also shown by the board as voting against although the country’s delegate said he abstained.

The assembly’s resolution followed closely the text of a Security Council resolution adopted last week. The council’s cease-fire call has not been heeded either by Israel, which attacked the Gaza Strip on Dec 27 to try to stamp out Palestinian rocket fire, or by Hamas.

Like the council’s text, Friday’s resolution calls for “an immediate, durable and fully-respected ceas-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip”.

The adopted text was hammered out in negotiations between the European Union and Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador Riyad Mansour, and was supported by moderate Arab states.

Mansour told the session that resolution would have split the assembly and made a ‘gift’ to Israel.

The EU-Palestinian text included a phrase, opposed by the radicals, that “the Palestinian and Israeli civilian populations must be protected and their suffering must end”.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said the majority that supported the adopted resolution “is not the one that the Palestinian people need”.