RAMALLAH, March 13: Israeli gunfire killed an Italian photographer in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, making him the first foreign journalist killed in 17 months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed, witnesses said.

In separate incidents in Ramallah on Wednesday, an Egyptian television journalist was lightly wounded and a French journalist shot in the leg. France’s foreign ministry protested to Israel.

Freelance photojournalist Raffaele Ciriello, 42, was hit by gunfire from Israeli soldiers who apparently mistook him for one of several Palestinians standing nearby, said a colleague who was with him when he was shot.

Footage shot by Italian state-run RAI showed Ciriello standing beside Palestinians moments before his death.

One of the Palestinians tells his comrades to be careful because of a tank at the end of the street, saying: “Go one at a time.”

Soon afterwards there is a burst of gunfire and Ciriello, who had moved out of view around a corner, is seen lying on his back, his hands jutting upwards. One guerilla drags him out of the line of fire and another calls a car to take him to hospital.

“We came to a place called Lion Square and took a side street because we heard raised voices,” said Amedeo Ricucci, a journalist working for RAI.

“There were some armed Palestinians who were arguing amongst themselves...we followed them...Out of a corner an Israeli tank appeared some 150-200 metres away. It was going in the opposite direction but stopped...we started to film, then hid behind a building.

“I told Raffaele to get under cover because it was dangerous. He got behind the building but he leaned out with a small camera...They got him with a burst of gunfire...probably they mistook him for a fighter,” Ricucci said.

Ricucci said only Israelis were in the part of the street where the shooting came from.

Ciriello’s Web site — “Postcards from Hell” — showed he had worked in a number of hot spots and war zones, including Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Lebanon and the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

“It is...utterly unacceptable and a tragedy that journalists were injured and killed by IDF (army) bullets in Ramallah earlier today,” U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told reporters, criticising the army’s offensive in the city.

Palestinian hospital officials said Ciriello, who was working for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, was shot six times in the chest. They doubted Ciriello had been wearing a flak jacket.—Reuters