UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) - The United States thwarted an effort by Libya on Saturday to persuade the UN Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after Israel launched a ground invasion.

As Israel's closest ally, Washington has regularly vetoed Security Council resolutions it sees as too critical of the Tel Aviv regime.
On Friday, U.S. President George W. Bush made clear he would not condemn an Israeli ground offensive.
French UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, currently Security Council president, told reporters after a closed-door session ""there was no agreement, but there (were) serious convergences to express serious concern"" about the crisis.
The ""convergences"" of opinions among council members included the need for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and easing the humanitarian crisis Gazans are in, Ripert said.
British Ambassador John Sawers said he was ""very disappointed"" about the council's failure to agree on a statement during Saturday's 4-hour emergency meeting.
Libya, the only Arab member of the council, had circulated a draft statement expressing ""serious concern at the escalation of the situation in Gaza, in particular, after the launching of the Israeli ground offensive"" and urged all parties ""to observe an immediate ceasefire.""
But diplomats said the United States refused to back the Libyan-drafted text and killed the initiative, since council statements must be passed unanimously. Later the United States refused to back a watered-down call for a truce, the diplomats said.
U.S. envoy Alejandro Wolff said ""Israel's self-defense is not negotiable.""
-------Law of the jungle
Israel launched the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, sending tanks and infantry into battle with Hamas fighters, who have defied eight days of deadly air strikes with salvos of rocket fire into Israeli towns.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, said it was the council's responsibility to demand that Israel ""stop this aggression immediately.""
""Israel cannot continue to behave as a state above international law -- this is the law of the jungle,"" he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate end to Israel's ground operation in Gaza. Speaking by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Ban conveyed his ""extreme concern and disappointment,"" his press office said in a statement.
Earlier in Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Mussa accused the Security Council of ""ignoring"" Israel's onslaught on Gaza, saying the delay in agreeing on a resolution was proof of failure to handle the conflict.
""The continuation of ... the international community and the Security Council ignoring this situation is a very dangerous thing,"" he told reporters at a press conference in the pan-Arab organization's Cairo headquarters.
--------Turkey says Gaza offensive 'unacceptable'
Turkey on Sunday condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and reiterated a call for an immediate end to the military operation there.
""We condemn and find it unacceptable that Israel has begun a ground operation (in Gaza) in spite of the warnings and reactions from the international community,"" the foreign ministry said in a statement.
-----------Huge protests in Turkey
Hundreds of thousands of Turks spilled into their streets Sunday after a call by an Islamist party to protest Israel's deadly assault on Gaza which has claimed more than 485 lives.
Organizers claimed there were as many as 700,000 people in the 180,000-square-meter venue.
Waving Turkish and Palestinian flags, the protesters chanted ""Damn Israel"" and ""Allahu Akbar"" or ""God is great"" as they burnt Israeli flags, an AFP correspondent said.
""Stop the massacre, Palestine is dying,"" read a banner brandished by the protesters, many of them wearing headbands with the inscription ""We are all Palestinians.""
""A genocide is underway on Palestinian soil. The massacre must stop. The Turkish government should do whatever is necessary against Israel,"" one of the protesters, Hakan Kuruten, a 38-year-old shipyard worker, told AFP.
----------Solana calls for Gaza ceasefire
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, adding that European nations stand ready to contribute international monitors to help keep the peace.
""The ceasefire has to be a ceasefire complied (with) by everybody and be clearly maintained,"" Solana told the BBC.
PA/PA END MNA