The Italian edition of the Vatican semiofficial newspaper quotes lengthy passages from the declaration, proposed by the United States. The resolution also condemns terrorism in the Middle East.

The declaration calls for an immediate cease-fire and affirms "a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders."

The resolution was approved by 14 votes. Syria abstained because it considered the resolution too soft on Israel.

The newspaper article ends by remembering Raffaele Ciriello, photographer of the Italy daily Il Corriere della Sera, killed on Wednesday by shots fired from an Israeli tank in the center of Ramala, West Bank. Two journalists (one French and another Egyptian) were wounded.

The photographer is the first journalist to die in the Palestinian intifada that began in September 2000.