Israel presses on with offensive despite deal

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed last night's ceasefire deal at the United Nations but its military campaign in Lebanon will continue until he has put the terms to a cabinet meeting tomorrow.

That was made clear by officials after a day of brinkmanship in which, hours before the UN was due to vote, Mr Olmert formally authorised the Israeli army to begin the ground operation the cabinet had authorised on Wednesday.

Gideon Meir, the deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry, said that Mr Olmert would recommend the deal to his fellow ministers at the regular meeting of the cabinet. As attacks on Hizbollah positions continued last night, it was not immediately clear whether fresh forces would be deployed in the next 48 hours.

Mr Olmert's precipitate order to expand the military operation had come as the first concrete signs of his political vulnerability as a war leader began to emerge. An opinion poll suggested almost 75 per cent of Israelis think the conflict is either a "draw" or is being won by Hizbollah.

The findings also showed that Mr Olmert's personal ratings had slipped from an early wartime peak to under 50 per cent, along with that of his Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, who won the approval of less than 40 per cent of electors.

Although the personal popularity findings were contradicted by those in a rival poll ­ which shows Mr Olmert's ratings for conducting the war at 66 per cent ­ they coincided with a sharpening media and political debate which underlines the prime minister's potential to be attacked from left or right, depending on the war's outcome.

The Peace Now group, a trio of the country's leading novelists and some of the country's most eminent commentators, had urged Mr Olmert to seek a quick diplomatic way out of the conflict. But another prominent columnist, Ari Shavit, writing in Ha'aretz, said if Mr Olmert "runs away from the war he initiated" he should resign immediately.

In Lebanon, meanwhile Israel continued areial strikes against south Beirut and border crossings to Syria, killing at least 15 people as fighting continued in the south of the country.

Witnesses said an Israeli drone had fired at a convoy fleeing attacks in southern Lebanon, killing at least one man and wounding other people. Lebanese security officials said at least four people were killed. The convoy of more than 100 civilian vehicles and cars was hit near the town of Chtaura in the Bekaa Valley. Throughout the day, civilians had been fleeing fighting in the Christian town of Marjayoun in long convoys after Israeli forces entered earlier this week.

The Associated Press reported from Marjayoun that there was "evidence of intense shelling and damage" and a bombardment appeared to be concentrated on Hizbollah fighters in surrounding Shia Muslim villages. The agency said that hundreds of civilian vehicles joined an exodus escorted by UN peacekeepers leaving the town, which gives Israeli forces a view of the Litani river ­ the explicit initial target of the expanded invasion.

The fast-paced military and diplomatic developments had come amid signs of tension within the dominant Kadima faction in the Israeli cabinet. A report said the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, had a sharp exchange with senior figures in the Israeli Defence Forces on Wednesday. She is reported to have asked them whether they had completed "the operation we approved the last time already?" They acknowledged they had not.