JERUSALEM — Israeli warplanes bombarded a U.N. post in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing four observers in a strike that Secretary-General Kofi Annan termed "apparently deliberate."
The bombing capped a violent day that included the death of a 15-year-old Israeli girl from a Hezbollah rocket in a northern Galilee town, and renewed Israeli airstrikes in and around Beirut.
United Nations officials said their observation post near the village of Khiam took a direct hit late Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike. Four members of the mission were killed. Their names and nationalities were not immediately released.
Annan flew to Rome to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and diplomats from European and Middle Eastern nations about the Lebanon crisis. He said he was "shocked and deeply distressed" by what he said was the "apparently deliberate" targeting of the post by the Israeli army.
Annan said he had received personal assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared, and the U.N. force commander for south Lebanon, Gen. Alain Pellegrini, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers to ensure the post's protection.
American officials labeled the attack "a terrible tragedy" and said they were told by the Israelis that it was an accident.
There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military, but Israel's ambassador to the United States said the incident was under investigation, and reacted sharply to Annan's allegation that the strike was deliberate.
"I think this kind of rhetoric is deplorable, it's outrageous, and I hope he will apologize for that," Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said on CNN's "The Situation Room."
He accused Hezbollah militants of positioning rocket launchers beside U.N. sites, a practice that has been reported by U.N. officials in recent days.
Hezbollah commander Sheik Hassan Nasrallah expressed new defiance late Tuesday. In a televised address, he said his organization would not submit to "humiliating" conditions imposed by the international community for a cease-fire, and threatened attacks even deeper into Israel.
Referring to a "new period" in the 2-week-old conflict, he said Hezbollah would strike beyond the port of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, where scores of rockets have been falling by the dozens.
"We will choose the time when we will move beyond -- beyond Haifa," Nasrallah said.
