UN Security Council votes to end Mideast conflict

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council today voted unanimously for a US-French drafted resolution that calls for an end to bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel and authorises up to 15,000 UN troops to enforce it.

The 15-0 vote, after weeks of nonstop negotiations at the United Nations and elsewhere, is the first concrete attempt to end a month of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah militia.

Some 1,000 Lebanese and 121 Israelis have been killed.

The resolution calls for a "full cessation of hostilities" and tells Hizbollah to stop all attacks immediately and Israel to end "all offensive operations."

Once fighting subsides, Israel is expected to undertake a phased withdrawal from Lebanon as the Lebanese army and an expanded UN peacekeeping force of up to 15,000 troops deploys in southern Lebanon, now controlled by Hizbollah.

But Secretary-General Kofi Annan chastised the council for not acting sooner when civilians on both sides "have suffered such terrible, unnecessary pain and loss."

"All members of this council must be aware that this inability to act sooner has badly shaken the world's faith in its authority and integrity," Annan said in a lengthy address. "War is not politics by other means."

Annan said he would help the parties over the weekend establish a timeline for a truce.

"Lebanon has been a victim for too long, mired in an incomplete political transformation since the end of the civil war," Annan said. "Over the last five weeks we have been reminded yet again what a tense fragile region the Middle East has become."

Despite the escalating fighting, both Israel and Lebanese leaders have indicated acceptance of the UN resolution. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to ask his cabinet for approval on Monday.

The draft resolution failed to adequately take into consideration the interests of Lebanon's security, its stability and its territorial integrity.

Foreign ministers from the United States, France, Britain, Denmark, Greece and Qatar, countries with seats on the Security Council raised their hands for the vote in the meeting chaired by Ghana's foreign minister, Nana Akufo-Addo.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "With this resolution, a new stronger Lebanon can emerge, with the world's help. Now the hard and urgent work of implementation begins."

She cautioned that no one could expect the resolution to end all violence, saying, "the conditions of a lasting peace must be nurtured over time."

- REUTERS