Israeli air raids killed four UN observers and military sources in Jerusalem said nine soldiers had been hit in a border town.
BEIRUT: Fighting on the Lebanon-Israeli border intensified on Wednesday after an Israeli air raid killed four UN observers and military sources in Jerusalem said nine soldiers had been hit in a border town battling Hezbollah guerrillas.
An international crisis meeting opened in Rome but there was no sign of any ceasefire emerging in the face of US and British demands that the groundwork for long-term peace be laid first.
Governments around the world expressed shock and anger at the deaths of the UN peacekeepers which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said appeared deliberately to target the observer post.
“I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon that has killed two UN military observers, with two more feared dead,” Annan said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, however, phoned Annan and expressed “deep regrets” over the killing and said he would order a comprehensive inquiry.
France, whose officers command the 28-year-old UN Interim Forces in Lebanon force, also protested, and China, one of whose nationals was among the dead, called in the Israeli ambassador in Beijing to demand a formal apology.
A Lebanese security source said the other three observers were an Austrian, a Canadian and a Finn.
Israeli warplanes also bombed southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital late Tuesday, ending a 24-hour lull that coincided with a lightning visit to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
A total of 25 people, including the four UN observers and nine civilians, were killed on Tuesday in south Lebanon, according to police, hospital and security officials.
Israel meanwhile pressed a separate offensive in Gaza launched on June 28 after the seizure of a third soldier by Palestinian militants.
Twelve Palestinians, including a three-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli fire Wednesday, bringing the toll there so far to 128 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier.
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