As the Gaza crisis unfolded, the United Nations Security Council spent four days in intensive negotiations that failed to come up with a response to the week's events, Harvey Morris reports .

Efforts by the 15-member body to produce a non-binding statement that would have criticised Israel initially foundered on US insistence on stronger language to condemn Palestinian rocket attacks. It eventually evaporated in the face of the refusal of Libya, the Security Council president, to accept a compromise.