ISRAEL received tacit approval to continue its campaign to crush Hezbollah yesterday, even as it was condemned for killing four UN observers and suffered its heaviest losses in Lebanon.

At an emergency meeting in Rome of foreign ministers from America, Europe and the Arab world. the United States, with British support, beat off concerted international demands for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the ministers urged Israel to exercise the “utmost restraint” while the conditions for a sustainable ceasefire were put in place, and agreed in principle to the creation of an international force to police an eventual peace deal.

At the same time Britain complained to the United States about the apparent use of Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, as a staging post for shipments of laser-guided bombs from America to Israel. “We are not happy about it,” Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, told Channel 4.

Sir Stephen Wall, until last year one of Tony Blair’s leading foreign policy advisers, turned on the Government, saying that it had “weasel-worded” its way through the crisis and that Britain’s moral authority was being undermined by its close relationship with the US. “The overriding reason is Blair’s conviction that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US President,” he wrote in The New Statesman.

“Could the Prime Minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives were wrong and should stop immediately?”

In New York the UN Security Council was preparing a statement expressing deep shock at Israel’s bombing on Tuesday night of a clearly marked UN observation post on the Lebanese border, killing officials from China, Finland, Canada and Austria. The UN said the observers had called the Israeli military ten times in six hours to say that shells were falling all around their post.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, apologised and accepted demands for an investigation, but angrily rejected claims by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, that the bombing was deliberate. The Americans also blocked an attempt by China to have the UN statement describe the bombing as “apparently deliberate”.

At least nine Israeli soldiers were killed on the fourth day of a battle for the town of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold four kilometres (2½ miles) north of the border — the highest toll since the offensive began 15 days ago. Hezbollah also fired more than 130 rockets at northern Israel, injuring dozens.

Israeli commanders have been surprised at the strength of Hezbollah’s resistance. Major-General Udi Adam, head of the northern command, said: “Given the progress over the last two weeks, I reckon [the offensive] will continue for several more weeks.”

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