The Indonesian Military (TNI) is ready to send troops to bloody Gaza should the United Nations request Indonesia to join a peace mission to the besieged area.

TNI spokesman Rear Marshall Sagom Tamboen told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that if the Indonesian government, in response to a UN request, decided to send troops to join a peace mission, then the military would readily answer to the call.

"If the UN does ask us to join a peace mission in Palestine, we will certainly send our troops there. However, we are now still waiting for the UN's request," he said.

According to Sagom, Indonesia's military mission to Lebanon in the past few years was based on the UN's Security Council resolution to send a peace mission to the Middle East country.

"Indonesia's regulation doesn't allow us to send troops to a foreign country, unless if it is a political decision of the government. The government will not decide on sending troops unless it is requested by the UN," he explained.

Sagom was responding to a demand from Islamic organizations in the country, urging the government to send troops to Gaza to help end Israeli strikes over the area and save the lives of Palestineans.

Among the organizations are Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Islam Troop Command and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI).

While FPI is mobilizing jihadis (volunteers) to depart to Gaza and fight the Israeli troops, HTI said it would not send any volunteers to the badly-damaged area.

"Hizbut Tahrir is not calling for the sending of volunteers to Palestine. We are calling for the sending of military troops. Volunteers can never fight and defeat Israel," HTI chairman Farid Wajdi said as quoted by kompas.com in a discussion here Saturday.

Farid added Israel had too strong a backing so that it was not an equal match for volunteers.

He also said Indonesia should not wait for the UN's request to join a peace mission, accusing the international body of being too weak and of being under the United States control.

AFP earlier reported that the UN Security Council emergency meeting in New York on New Year's Eve failed to produce a decision after ambassadors from the United States and Britain rejected the Libyan draft resolution condemning Israel's military action and calling for an immediate cease fire.

The draft resolution "strongly condemns all military attacks and the excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel, the occupying power, which have led to the death and injury of scores of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children."

The two ambassadors said the draft needed to be amended before possible adoption because it failed to mention the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, which they claimed had triggered the Israeli strikes.

"This resolution as currently circulated by Libya is not balanced and therefore, as currently drafted, it is not acceptable to the United States," U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.

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