The U.N. General Assembly approved by lopsided margins on Tuesday a string of resolutions aimed at promoting Palestinian rights and pressuring Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories. In what has become an annual exercise in the 191-nation assembly, just a handful of nations -- led by Israel and its closest ally the United States -- voted against the six resolutions although more than 50 countries abstained on three of the texts.

But one of the resolutions -- expressing "grave concern" over Middle East violence and urging Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War -- passed 160-4, with just three abstentions.

That text also expressed "grave concern" over the growing suffering and casualties on both sides of the conflict and stressed the need for "a commitment to the vision" of separate Israeli and Palestinian states existing side by side in peace as set out by President Bush in a June speech.

The Marshall Islands and Micronesia joined Israel and Washington in voting "No" on all six resolutions.

Costa Rica and Nauru joined those four in voting against one resolution each.

Another of the resolutions adopted on Tuesday dismissed as "null and void" Israeli attempts to impose laws on Jerusalem -- a holy city for Muslims and Christians as well as Jews.

Yet another demanded Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 war.

Others praised the work of the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the U.N. Division for Palestinian Rights, and the U.N. Department of Public Information

The General Assembly controls the budget and general programming of the United Nations. While its decisions on political issues express the will of the international community, they are not binding, like those of the 15-nation Security Council.

The votes, capping three days of debate on the Middle East and the Palestinian question, fell during a time of surging violence between Israelis and Palestinians despite U.S. calls for calm in the region as it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.

ISRAELI OCCUPATION SOLDIERS KILL A 95-YEAR OLD WOMAN

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation troops sweeping the West Bank arrested at least 20 Palestinians, while violence continued unabated in the Palestinian territories and claimed its oldest victim since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000.

A 95-year-old woman was shot dead by occupation soldiers who opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians queuing to enter the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the curfew had been lifted, Palestinian medical sources said.

An AFP reporter who witnessed the scene said Fatmah Obeid was sitting at the back of a stationary car when she was hit by two bullets.

Israeli occupation army sources said the vehicle was moving and that occupation soldiers only aimed at the tyres.

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat described the incident as "a war crime." He likened it to the killing of a 72-year-old Palestinian man, who was crushed by the rubble of his house, dynamited Sunday by the occupation army in the Gaza Strip.

In the same building, which the occupation army said sheltered a wanted Palestinian resistance activist , were 500 tonnes of food destined for needy Palestinians.

The demolition drew condemnation from the United Nations, the World Food Programme and Arab nations, and on Tuesday a group of foreign UN workers in the occupied territories protested anew at the November 22 killing in Jenin of their colleague, Iain Hook.

Israel also risked incurring the wrath of its chief ally, the United States, with a reported plan to build new housing units in several isolated West Bank settlements.

But a spokeswoman for Housing Minister Nathan Sharansky denied that such a plan had been agreed. "The ministry does not plan any stepped up development ahead of the elections," she told AFP.

She nevertheless said a tender for the construction of 150 new houses in the large settlements of Ariel and Efrat, northeast of Tel Aviv and south of Jerusalem respectively, had been issued two months ago.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian hurls stones towards Israeli tanks during clashes in the West Bank town of Jenin, December 2, 2002. (Reuters)