UN Vote on Lebanon Resolution Expected

The US and France have agreed a text for a UN resolution aimed at ending the Israeli-Lebanon conflict, the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said tonight.

Reuters said the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was considering the latest draft and there were expectations it would be put before the UN security council for a vote this evening.

Reports indicated that Israel, which had earlier launched a new ground offensive in Lebanon, was responding positively to the latest version of the peace initiative, the product of weeks of difficult diplomacy.

Mrs Beckett said: "We have an agreed text. The Israelis apparently have announced that if it is a text they feel they can live with, they will halt this further offensive."

It was hoped the resolution would end the month-long conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hizbullah fighters, which has killed at least 1,026 Lebanese and 123 Israelis.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, flew to New York in advance of the vote today, saying as she arrived that she was "working for a vote today". The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said: "We are now very, very close to agreement and our aspiration to have a vote at the end of the afternoon remains."

Hopes of a breakthrough had been tempered earlier today, however, when Mr Olmert approved a fresh ground offensive in southern Lebanon, which is now under way.

But some commentators said Mr Olmert's move to expand the ground operation appeared to be calculated to put pressure on the UN to secure a ceasefire deal, amid signs of declining support among the Israeli public for the offensive.

One Israeli political source told Reuters: "We said two days ago that we would stop the [Hizbullah rocket] fire, either militarily or diplomatically."

The Israeli government has been facing growing discontent at home over its handling of the war and members of the rightwing Likud party have been calling for new elections.

Anti-war elements of the Israeli left have also voiced their opposition over recent days. One opinion poll showed approval ratings for Mr Olmert's government had fallen to 48% from 75% in the opening stages of the war.

Divisions over the war have intensified since a meeting of the security cabinet on Wednesday, in which differences emerged between Mr Olmert and the military chief, Dan Halutz, as well as between the defence minister, Amir Peretz, and his predecessor, Shaul Mofaz.

The rift within Israel is largely between those who support government policy and those who believe the military campaign should have been more forceful.

At least 15 Lebanese people and one Israeli died today in Israeli air strikes. Fighting continued in southern Lebanon, while seven were wounded by Hizbullah rocket attacks on northern Israel.

Heavy bombing continued in Lebanon overnight and today. Twelve people were killed at the Abboudiyeh border crossing, in northern Lebanon, when Israeli air strikes hit a busy bridge today.

At least one person died when three vehicles were hit in the eastern city of Baalbek. Suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, were also bombarded.

The strike on Abboudiyeh means there is now only one official way in or out of Lebanon, at the coastal town of Arida.

Israeli troops tightened their control of the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, a strategic site on high ground north of the heavily rocketed Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

The town - where Israeli troops and a pro-Israeli militia were headquartered during the occupation of southern Lebanon until six years ago - overlooks large areas of Hizbullah-held territory in the south of Lebanon.

UN peacekeepers were today heading to Marjayoun to evacuate 350 Lebanese soldiers after Israeli troops reportedly told them they would not be allowed to leave.

"The situation is so bad. There is a curfew, so we can't see the Israelis, but we hear gunshots near the house," Rana Daher, a Marjayoun resident, told Reuters.

"We have no running water, no electricity, and we are running out of food. We have one bag of bread left," she added.

Israel has been carving out a five-mile deep security zone north of the Lebanese border over the past fortnight, but Wednesday's security cabinet decision authorised the armed forces to extend the zone as far as the Litani river, 18 miles north of the border, and beyond.

The plan - which would see Israel reoccupying all the areas it withdrew from in 2000 - was suspended at the last moment on Wednesday night.

The move apparently came after Ms Rice persuaded Mr Olmert to give the UN security council time to come up with a resolution to end the crisis.