UNITED NATIONS, March 30: The UN Security Council on Saturday morning voted for a resolution calling on Israel to pull its troops out of Palestinian cities and urged Israelis and Palestinians to immediately implement a ceasefire.

The United States, too, voted for the resolution, which was adopted with 14 votes in favour and none against.

The lone abstention was Syria, which said it cannot agree to the resolution because it does not denounce Israel’s actions.

“There is no excuse for the killing of innocent civilians,” the President of the Security Council, Ole Peter Kolby of Norway, said. “The Israeli bombardment of Palestinian cities and institutions, which has led to death and destruction, is unacceptable.”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the session by telling Israel to halt its assault on the Palestinian Authority and said Palestinians had to stop “horrific terrorist attacks” against Israeli civilians.

Palestinian UN delegate Nasser Al-Kidwa blasted Israel for calling Arafat an “enemy” and vowed to help pass a resolution calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Al-Kidwa accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of embarking on “new insane steps”.

“Let me state here that any harm to President Arafat would be the mother of all mistakes,” he said.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, objected to the resolution, saying it gave “a prize to the Palestinians terrorists” by not appealing strongly for an end to suicide bombing attacks and questioning Israel’s right to self-defence.

During a five-hour council meeting, which began on Friday evening, council members criticized Israel’s assault on the Palestinian Authority.

The US Ambassador James Cunningham was virtually alone in placing blame for the escalating crisis on Palestinian suicide bombers. UN chief Kofi Annan also warned that destroying the Palestinian Authority would bring the region even closer to war.

Most council members supported Annan’s position, except for the US.

Agencies add: Syria had initially planned to table its own draft resolution on the Middle East conflict, but eventually agreed to withhold the alternate text if the Council President Ole Peter Kolby read a statement indicating that the ceasefire and withdrawal provisions were not intended to be sequential.

“There were a lot of members advised us not to present our resolution,” Syrian representative Mikhail Wehbe told reporters after the vote.

Still, Syria’s decision not to attend the vote was highly unusual. In fact, the last time a delegation had skipped a vote was in 1994, when the Rwandan team did not arrive to cast its vote. Prior to that was the former Soviet Union’s absence in 1950.