UNITED NATIONS, April 30: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday moved toward cancelling a much-delayed UN fact-finding mission to the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp after Israel said it would go on blocking it.

After initially welcoming it, Israel has raised a series of objections to the fact-finding panel, named by Annan nearly two weeks ago following Palestinian charges that a massacre had taken place there.

“The secretary-general is minded to disband the team. I so informed the council,” Kieran Prendergast, UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, said after briefing the 15-nation security council on the latest developments.

Annan was expected to make a decision soon on whether to make a clean break and cancel the mission or whether to disband the team in Geneva, where it has assembled, and resume talks in New York aimed at resolving the impasse with Israel, diplomats said. Much would depend on what council members advised him.

Prendergast said “I advised the council that events on the ground were moving rapidly and that with every passing day, it becomes more difficult to determine what took place on the ground in Jenin”.

Palestinians say hundreds may have died in the West Bank camp.

Annan said earlier in the day the United Nations had “done everything” to meet Israeli concerns about the mission but would not say what his next step would be.

‘PLAYING A GAME’: “We’ve really done everything to deal with their concerns. And I think we’ve been very forthcoming,” Annan said, noting that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer had both told him a UN team would be welcome and Israel had nothing to hide.

Peres told Israeli television “the dialogue continues” with the United Nations.

But Egypt’s UN ambassador, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said Israel was “acting outside of international legality” and Arab nations would ask the security council for a strong response.

“The Israelis are playing a game and they are today ... rebuffing the secretary-general as well as the security council,” he told reporters.

Arab states were considering a resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which would make it mandatory, demanding Israel accept the team or put itself in violation of council directives.

But a US official said Washington opposed this, arguing that the mission, although approved by the council, was under Annan’s authority and should not be part of this type of resolution.—Reuters