Three people died in fighting in the West Bank on Wednesday, a relative lull after the heavy toll of recent days, as Palestinian and Israeli officials welcomed different elements of a surprise U.S.-sponsored resolution at the United Nations that endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state for the first time and demanded an immediate cease-fire

IN TUESDAY’S Security Council session, the United States, Israel’s most powerful ally, introduced an unprecedented resolution that affirms “a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side-by-side within secure and recognized borders.”

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, welcomed the U.N. resolution as a positive sign and said it was a “real condemnation of Israeli aggression.”

Reading from a prepared statement, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arie Mekel praised the U.S. for inserting into the resolution a demand for the immediate cessation of “all acts of terror” but he made no mention of its affirmation of Palestinian statehood.
       
ISRAEL LAUDS CEASE-FIRE BID
“Israel is among those trying to reach a cease-fire and calm,” Mekel said. “And to facilitate the immediate renewal of the peace process and a return to the negotiating table.”

On the heels of the resolution, U.S. Mideast envoy Anthony Zinni is expected in the region Thursday. After failing to broker a peace deal on two previous visits, Zinni must now overcome ever fiercer hostility between Israel and the Palestinians after the worst spate of violence in the 17-month conflict. In March alone, 163 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 59 people have been killed on the Israeli side.

Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, told a parliamentary committee that about 20,000 Israeli soldiers are now stationed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in what has been has been described as the largest scale Israeli military operation since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
       
14-0 VOTE ON RESOLUTION
The U.N. resolution was approved by a 14-0 vote, with Syria abstaining, more than 17 months after the start of a Palestinian uprising the United Nations says has claimed some 1,550 lives. 

Israel did not make any official comment on the statehood part of the resolution and one foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the absence of comment was deliberate and reflected Israeli unease with international intervention on the issue.

But Mekel said in response to journalists’ questions that although Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has publicly accepted the concept of a Palestinian state, it must be of a specified character.

“If such a state is established by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, if it’s demilitarized, if it’s not a hostile base of terror and particularly if it’s the end of the conflict between the Jews and Arabs once and for all, most people in Israel feel they have no problem with such a Palestinian state,” Mekel said.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Wednesday that the reference to a Palestinian state represented a defeat for Sharon.  

“There is a need now for direct international intervention to implement this resolution through ending the Israeli occupation and evacuating all the Israeli settlements” from Palestinian lands, Rabbo said. “This is not a cease-fire. This would be a kind of capitulation,” he told Reuters.
       
EXPECTATION FOR A TRUCE
Israeli officials said they did not expect a truce to take hold immediately with Zinni’s arrival Thursday. “It is an extended process which will take a few days, but that does not mean we should not aim to do it as fast as possible,” Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Army Radio. 

Vice President Dick Cheney, who arrived in Egypt early Wednesday, is also expected in Israel next week as part of a regional tour, partly aimed at enlisting Arab support for deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Aides acknowledged that the stepped-up Israeli offensive has not helped Cheney’s mission.

“[Sharon] did not coordinate his actions with” Cheney, said a senior administration official who briefed reporters here on the condition of anonymity.

At a joint press appearance with President Hosni Mubarak, both leaders condemned the rise in violence.

“The burden is on both parties to bring an end to the violence,” Cheney said, further emphasizing a recent shift in U.S. policy away from mostly blaming the violence on Arafat. 

RAMALLAH CURFEW
On Wednesday, Israeli tanks patrolled Ramallah, enforcing a curfew. In several locations, including downtown Manara Square, there were fierce gunbattles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. In one exchange, Fuad Obeidy, the deputy commander of the Palestinian security service Force 17 in Ramallah, was killed by Israeli tank fire, doctors said. A 21-year-old Israeli soldier was also killed.

After daybreak, Italian free-lance photographer Raffaele Ciriello, 42, was killed near Manara Square. A witness, fellow journalist Amedeo Ricucci, said he and Ciriello were following Palestinian gunmen at about 9:30 a.m. when the Israeli tank appeared from around the corner.

Ricucci said soldiers in the tank fired a machine gun from about 150 yards without warning, striking Ciriello in the stomach. Ricucci and another colleague, both of whom work for Italian television Rai Uno, were not hurt. 

An army spokesman, Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, expressed regret at the death, but said it was still not confirmed who caused it. “There has been crossfire for several days and we don’t know where he has been killed,” Rafowicz said.

A French photographer working in Ramallah was injured by shrapnel from an explosive device that went off near a group of journalists, witnesses said. In recent fighting, Palestinian gunmen have often placed home-made bombs near Israeli tanks.

Later Wednesday, three Apache attack helicopters fired machine guns toward gunmen in Ramallah, and doctors said seven Palestinians were wounded. Tanks also surrounded Ramallah Hospital, keeping away ambulances, said Dr. Moussa Abu Hmeid, the head of emergency departments in West Bank Hospitals.
       
WATER, POWER CUT
Abu Hmeid also said Israeli troops cut off water and electricity to the hospital. The Israeli military said soldiers had inadvertently caused the cut-off and were working with Palestinian officials to repair the damage.

Wednesday’s violence followed an Israeli offensive Tuesday in which dozens of tanks drove into Ramallah, the Palestinians’ commercial and administrative center in the West Bank. Israeli forces also raided the Jebaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, the largest in the Palestinian areas with 100,000 residents and a stronghold of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Thirty one Palestinians were killed during Tuesday’s operations. Seven Israelis died in separate Palestinian attacks the same day.