UNITED NATIONS -- The UN Security Council voted late Thursday to call for an "immediate, durable" ceasefire in the Gaza Strip leading to the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces, but the United States abstained.

Fourteen of the council's members voted in favor of the compromise resolution worked out in three days of intense bargaining involving several Arab foreign ministers, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.