The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday shelved a controversial report on Israel's recent war in the Gaza Strip, averting a crisis in the push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks but potentially scuttling efforts to initiate broad war-crimes prosecutions over the conflict.

 

Palestinian officials dropped their support for a scheduled Friday vote on the report after intense lobbying from the Obama administration, which argued that action on the study would "backfire" by driving Israel away from possible peace talks and strengthening opposition among Western countries worried about similar investigations of their soldiers.