UNITED NATIONS, April 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States said Thursday, April 18, it will veto a new UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities, an end to the siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and a UN investigation into destruction in the Jenin refugee camp, news agencies reported.

The American declaration followed a demand for a vote on the Arab-backed resolution made Thursday by the Palestinian UN observer, Nasser Al-Kidwa. In his appeal, Al-Kidwa accused Israel of challenging the Council's previous resolutions that orders Israel to pull its army out of the West Bank, including Ramallah, where Arafat is under siege.

The draft resolution, demanding immediate implementation of the three previous resolutions and calling for "an international presence that could help provide better conditions on the ground", was supposed to be debated by the Council after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan explained to the UN members Thursday morning his demand for sending an armed international force to Palestinian areas.

While he was in Geneva last Friday, April 12, Annan said that "the situation is so dangerous and the humanitarian and human rights situation so appalling" that an international armed force was essential to end the killing, allow humanitarian relief efforts and provide time for negotiations and diplomacy.

Nevertheless, a U.S. official, who refused to be identified, said Wednesday that the United States would veto the resolution. The U.S. official explanation for the veto was that the U.S. was suffering from what they called a "resolution fatigue" after three previous Security Council resolutions, saying that action in the region is more important than words in the United Nations, news agencies reported.

The debate over this resolution and the U.S veto comes at the same time that the situation in the Palestinians territories is worsening. According to the AFP, the Israeli troops arrested on Thursday Hossam Atef Ali Badran, a military leader of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, and killed three other Palestinians in the West Bank. On the same day, four Israeli helicopters opened fire over the West Bank village of Beit Hassan, east of Nablus, after the army imposed a curfew there.

Meanwhile, Israel, which gave final approval to construction permanent Jewish housing in the center of the West Bank city of Hebron, said it would allow only a few U.S. observers, but not an international force, news agencies reported.