Beirut: Israel strove on Wednesday to limit the diplomatic damage from its killing of four UN observers in Lebanon ahead of an international conference in Rome on how to end its 15-day-old war with Hezbollah guerrillas.
Hezbollah vowed not to accept any "humiliating" truce terms and take its rocket strikes deeper into Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he had told Annan of his "deep sorrow" at the killing of the four UN observers, but voiced shock at Annan's suggestion the attack was deliberate.
"The prime minister said he would never fathom the thought that the mistake that was made would be categorised by the UN as an action that was done intentionally," said a statement from Olmert's office.
Olmert said he would order an investigation. Annan had demanded Israel probe the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the UN post in the village of Khiam on Tuesday.
China condemned the air raid, in which a Chinese national was killed. Its official Xinhua news agency said the other three observers were from Finland, Austria and Canada.
An Israeli soldier was killed and five were wounded in heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern town of Bint Jbeil on Wednesday, Al Jazeera television said.
An Israeli army spokesman said only that several soldiers had been wounded in clashes around the town, which Israel says is a Hezbollah stronghold, 4 km inside Lebanon.
UN officials said the air strike flattened the building housing the observers. Lebanese security sources said three of the bodies had been dug out of the rubble.
"(This) attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire," Annan said in a statement.
The war has already killed 418 people in Lebanon and 42 Israelis.
Israeli bombing has forced an estimated 750,000 to flee their homes. Many are still trapped in war zones.
The first UN aid convoy left Beirut for the southern port city of Tyre.
The 10-truck convoy was carrying 90 tonne of supplies, enough to feed 50,000 people for three months.
"This is a small convoy. This is a litmus test for the security controls in place," Khaled Mansour, a UN spokesman, told Reuters as the convoy left Beirut port.
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Lebanon and its Arab allies will plead at the Rome talks - due to start at 0800 GMT (1330 hrs, IST) - for an immediate truce, but Washington says a lasting solution needs to be agreed first.
Israel, with apparent US approval, has said it will press on with its offensive. It also said it plans to set up a "security strip" in Lebanon until international forces deploy.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose group ignited the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid, rejected US truce terms and vowed, in a taped speech on television, to take the war deeper into Israel.
"We cannot accept any condition humiliating to our country, our people or our resistance," he said "Yes, the limit of our bombardment will not remain Haifa, regardless of the enemy's response. We will move to the phase of 'beyond Haifa'."
The current conflict is the first in which Hezbollah rockets have hit Haifa, Israel's third largest city. Israel has also been waging an offensive in Gaza since June 28 to recover a soldier seized by Palestinian militants.
Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians, including a three-year-old child and wounded 30, on Wednesday, medics and witnesses said. Israel has stepped up air strikes and launched raids in Gaza to retrieve the soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.
Altogether 129 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive.
Arab leaders and Annan want the Rome conference to call a quick halt to the conflict but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has visited Beirut and Jerusalem, says she prefers to get conditions right for "a durable solution".
Israel and Syria, Hezbollah's main ally along with Iran, have not been invited to the Rome conference.
Hezbollah wants a truce to be followed by talks on swapping the two Israelis for Arab and Lebanese prisoners in Israel.
The United States demands Hezbollah free the soldiers unconditionally and pull back from the border before disarming.
The Rome meeting will also seek agreement on what kind of international force could be sent into southern Lebanon - a mission fraught with danger unless Hezbollah consents.
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