Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, has broken off her holiday and headed for New York amid hopes that the United Nations Security Council may finally be ready to pass a resolution to stop the fighting in Lebanon.
Mrs Beckett, who was on a caravan holiday in France, returned to London last night to hold an emergency meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the crisis in the Middle East.
She then flew back to France, because transatlantic flights were halted after the terror scare, and was expected in New York later tonight.
British diplomats said that she had decided to interrupt her holiday because she felt that she could help bridge the gap between the America and France over the wording of a proposed UN resolution.
"She wants to be in the thick of the action. She feels the right place for her to be is in New York," said a British official.
Until today the American and French officials appeared deeply divided over how to end the month-long fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.
Britain side convened a meeting last night in New York of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — America, Britain, China, France and Russia — where the differences were narrowed.
The main stumbling block remains "sequencing", which means the process by which Israeli forces will withdraw from Lebanon and a peacekeeping force will take its place. British officials said that both America and France had offered concessions and there were now hopes of a deal.
The favoured compromise would be a phased Israeli withdrawal synchronised with the deployment of Lebanese Army units together with a strengthened force of UN peacekeepers. They would fill any power vacuum until a more robust multinational intervention force led by France could be assembled.
"Things are moving forward," said a British diplomat. "There is a sense that we are going to be able to reach an agreement on this."
Hopes of a breakthrough came despite the unravelling of an alleged plot to bomb several airliners between the UK and the US and fierce fighting in Lebanon.
Although the Israeli Government said it was waiting on diplomatic developments before starting a major offensive that would reach up to 20 miles (32km) inside the country, Israeli tanks and soldiers were caught in vicious, close fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas across southern Lebanon today.
Last night, a mile-long column of tanks and armoured bulldozers rolled across the border into Lebanon after Israel’s security Cabinet approved a significant expansion of its four-week-old war to cripple Hezbollah.
But dawn broke to reveal tanks were being crippled within sight of the border town of Metulla. Shoulder-launched Hezbollah missiles sent tank crews sprinting for safety while other vehicles laid down smoke to cover their escape.
Five miles (8km) inside Lebanon, Israeli troops were reported to have taken the Christian town of Marjayoun, which served as the headquarters of the eighteen-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
Although the town is not believed to be sympathetic towards Hezbollah, residents said two Israeli tanks were destroyed in an ambush. The town overlooks the valley of the Litani River, where Israel believes many of the Hezbollah rocket attacks against its northern towns are launched.
Elsewhere across the fiercely contested swathe of Hezbollah-controlled territory inside southern Lebanon, Israeli soldiers encountered severe resistance.
The Shia group claimed to have destroyed 13 Israeli tanks and to have killed 18 Israeli soldiers. The group also maintained its rocket barrage: launching more than 100 Katyushas at towns and villages in northern Israel. One rocket killed an Arab Israeli mother and her young child. Another hit Haifa.
After suffering 15 fatalities yesterday, Israeli commanders did not comment on tank losses or casualties but reports that indicated that the worst fighting was taking place in the Khiam plain, an area of flat ground believed to be used as a rocket launching base. At least 82 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the conflict.
To the north, helicopter gunships opened fire on buildings of the Beirut seafront, the first shelling of the centre of the Lebanese capital since Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said further attacks on the heart of the city would lead to Hezbollah strikes on Tel Aviv.
A radio antenna was destroyed and part of the roof of a historic lighthouse was blown apart. Leaflets gave warning of further attacks. In Tyre, Lebanese officials said a motorcyclist was killed by an Israeli rocket. In the eastern Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold, an Israeli drone fired a missile into a minibus, killing one person and wounding 12, residents said.
Meanwhile the Israeli air force extended its ban on road travel to northern Lebanon for the first time. Leaflets were dropped near Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, some 15 miles (25km) from the Syrian border and said that vehicles moving on the main coastal road would be bombed.
Restrictions on movement within Lebanon, imposed by both Israel and Hezbollah, attracted the criticism of the UN's top humanitarian official today, who said that aid could be delivered to 120,000 stranded Lebanese civilians if there was a pause in the fighting.
"The Hezbollah and the Israelis could give us access in a heartbeat," said Jan Egeland, who said that two UN-chartered oil tankers had been unable to dock in Beirut because of the danger, raising the risk that power supplies, already limited, could fail across the country.
"It is a disgrace really... We have not had any access for many days to the besieged population of southern Lebanon."
Despite broad Israeli public support for the war, the slow progress of the fighting and mounting casualties have led to frank criticism of the military operation, which has been unable to land decisive blows against Hezbollah.
Dissent within the Knesset and the Israeli Cabinet was laid bare by Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel, and the Trade Minister, Eli Yishai, two of the three ministers to abstain during yesterday's tense, six hour meeting on the war.
Mr Peres, now deputy Prime Minister, told Yediot Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling daily newspaper, that Israel was likely to suffer 15 deaths a day if it continued its ground war.
"It is always possible to run to war but it is preferable to give a chance to the diplomatic channel. Fifteen victims a day is a proof of the price we are likely to pay if we don't try to utilise the diplomatic process to the fullest," he said.
"At the moment it is preferable to wait and see if it is possible to achieve demands we asked Lebanon without exerting full military power."
