Israel last night agreed to suspend its air campaign over Lebanon for 48 hours while it investigated civilian deaths from the bombing raid on Qana.
A US state department spokesman said Israel had also agreed to coordinate a 24-hour pause in its operations to allow food and medicine into the ravaged south of the country, and give residents safe passage out of the region. But Israel reserved the right to launch a pre-emptive strike if it had evidence attacks were being prepared against it.
Israeli officials contacted by journalists late last night said they had no knowledge of the deal, which appeared to have been brokered between the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice and the Israeli leadership, after at least 60 people, many of them children, were killed in Qana.
"The United States welcomes this decision and hopes that it will help relieve the suffering of the children and families of southern Lebanon," Ms Rice's spokesman, Adam Ereli, told reporters accompanying the secretary of state during her visit to Jerusalem as she sought to build agreement for a multinational security force and a negotiated ceasefire. The Lebanese government had earlier told Ms Rice she was not welcome in Beirut until the US backed international calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The UN security council convened in emergency session at Lebanon's request to discuss the Qana bombing and a ceasefire. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, said he hoped council members would realise "how dangerous the situation is and how it can escalate and get out of hand, and the urgency for them to act".
But amid continuing differences over rival versions of the UN resolution promised by Tony Blair and George Bush on Friday, France warned of a growing rift between Washington, Britain and Israel on the one hand, and European and Arab governments on the other.
Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, expressed "deep sorrow" over the deaths in Qana. He said the area around the village had been used by Hizbullah to launch rockets into Israel. Israeli reports said Mr Olmert had told Ms Rice that the war would go on for another "10 to 14 days" until the military's objectives were met.
Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia militia that sparked the conflict with an attack on Israeli forces on July 12, vowed revenge for Qana. "This horrific massacre will not go without a response," it said. About 115 Hizbullah rockets hit Israel yesterday, reportedly wounding six people. In a speech preceding the Qana attack, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's leader, warned of new long-range missile attacks on Israeli cities "if the barbaric aggression against us continues".
Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, denounced "heinous Israeli war crimes" and thanked Hizbullah for its "sacrifices" in defence of Lebanon's sovereignty. Calling for an international investigation into Qana, he said diplomatic contacts with the US would not resume until a ceasefire was in place. Lebanese officials say that more than 750 Lebanese have been killed in 19 days of fighting. Fifty-one Israelis have died.
In another ominous development, spokesmen for the Palestinian movement Hamas described Israel's latest actions as "open war against the Arab and Muslim nations" and raised the possibility that suicide attacks inside Israel might resume.
Tony Blair said the Qana attack was "absolutely tragic [and] showed the necessity of wrapping this entire process up now".
Mr Blair and the German chancellor Angela Merkel last night issued a joint statement trying to bridge the differences that have emerged between Britain and the EU. "The tragic events of today have underlined the urgency of the need for a ceasefire as soon as possible. It is now necessary to work in New York [at the UN Security Council] on the preconditions for such a ceasefire.
Further condemnation poured in from the Middle East, Europe and the UN. Jordan's King Abdullah described Qana as "an ugly crime". Syria and Iran, accused by the US and Israel of arming and financing Hizbullah, also weighed in. "The massacre ... constitutes state terrorism committed in front of the eyes and ears of the world," Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said. Brigadier General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said: "The Basij [Islamic militia] and Revolutionary Guards should prepare to get even with Zionists and Americans."
Ms Rice appeared shaken when news of the bombing broke: "I think it's time to get to a ceasefire. We actually have to try and put one in place," she said. But she repeated the US view that any solution had to be lasting one and that a ceasefire by itself would not suffice. She claimed she had decided of her own accord not to travel to Beirut, where there were protests against the bombing and the headquarters of the UN was attacked. She will return to Washington today. Mr Blair, in San Francisco, made a series of calls to Mr Bush, Mr Siniora and Jacques Chirac, the French president, to try to rescue his plan for a stabilisation force. He said that as soon as a security council resolution was passed, a durable cessation of violence was immediately possible.
The proposed US-British security council draft calls for the phased introduction of an international security force in south Lebanon, the reassertion of Lebanese army control, withdrawal and eventual disarming of Hizbullah and political measures to ensure a ceasefire is sustainable. France says there must be a ceasefire before any deployment.
There are growing calls in Washington and London for the Bush administration to talk directly to Syria as a way of bringing Hizbullah to the negotiating table.