New York  - The United Nations Security Council was meeting late Saturday at UN headquarters in New York to discuss the Mideast conflict, hours after Israeli troops launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip.

The hastily arranged meeting, called by Arab countries, was held behind closed doors.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority's envoy to the UN, demanded that the Security Council compel Israel to begin an immediate ceasefire and to withdraw ground forces to previous positions outside the territory.

"The Security Council can not continue to sit on its hands," he said outside Saturday's meeting.

"Israel cannot continue to behave like a state above the law. That is the law of the jungle. That is illegal."

The Security Council has been unable to forge a resolution on the violence since an Israeli bombing campaign began on December 27, in response to stepped up rocket fire toward southern Israel by Gaza militants.

There was no vote on a recent resolution introduced by Arab countries, after Western powers in the Security Council deemed the measure one-sided against Israel.

Earlier Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for the Security Council to act to stop the Israeli air and ground offensives. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement that Abbas called on the Security Council to convene immediately "to halt and stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip."

Several Arab leaders and diplomats are expected to be in New York this week to make direct appeals for the UN to take action.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday said that he was extremely disturbed by the start of the Israeli ground incursion. He said that the escalation would only make it harder for efforts to halt the conflict - by the Mideast Quartet, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and others - to succeed.

Ban telephoned with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express deep concern and disappointment with the incursion, a UN spokeswoman said.

In Amman, Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir on Saturday summoned ambassadors of the five Security Council veto powers - the US, Britain, France, China and Russia - and urged the world community "to shoulder its responsibilities" in forcing Israel to halt its military actions in Gaza. (dpa)