Arab man outside UN headquarters in Gaza
Arab man outside UN headquarters in GazaFlash 90

Israel has indicated that it is ready to re-engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council, an official said Friday.

"The president (of the Human Rights Council) received a letter from Israel this week to express the desire to re-engage discussion to come back to the Human Rights Council," the UN body's spokesman Rolando Gomez told reporters, according to the AFP news agency.

Israel's review was now likely to be scheduled for October 29, he added.

The letter from Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Eviator Manor, was later released to the media by the council.

In the document, dated June 3, Manor said that he intended to continue a "close and fruitful dialogue" with Poland's ambassador, Remigiusz Henczel, who is currently at the helm of the 47-nation rights council.

"I wish to cooperate with you and pursue a diplomatic engagement with a view to positively resolve all outstanding issues in Israel's complex relationship with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms," Manor wrote, according to AFP.

Israel is not part of the council but, like all 193 U.N. member states, it is required to undergo Universal Periodic Reviews (UPRs) of its human rights situation. However Israel decided to boycott the council last March after it announced that it would probe how Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria may be infringing on Arab rights.  The recent incident was merely the latest in the council’s long history of blatant bias and anti-Israel inclinations.

Israel has long accused the Human Rights Council of singling it out, noting that it is the only country to have a specific agenda item dedicated to it at every meeting of the council, and that the body has passed an inordinate number of resolutions against it.