The United Nations is to withdraw its unarmed observers from the Israeli-Lebanese border region. The move follows the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli missile attack Tuesday. The Danish army issued a brief statement claiming, "The UN now evacuates its patrol bases and observers from positions in southern Lebanon. It comes after the continued shelling in the past days. UN personnel, including the observers, are temporarily gathered at the UN headquarters in Naqoura, southern Lebanon."

"These are unarmed people and this is for their protection," Milos Struger, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the 2,000 strong peacekeeping force told AP.

The UN Truce Supervision Organization is a small force of around 50 observers which occupies four outposts along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Two of the UNTSO posts have already been abandoned, including the outpost at Kiam, the site where the four UN observers were killed. The observers will join the rest of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Naqoura, where troops carry arms.

The UN Security Council approved a statement Thursday declaring itself "deeply shocked and distressed" over the bombing of the UN post in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, which killed four unarmed UN observers. It also expressed "deep concern for Lebanese and Israeli civilian casualties and sufferings, the destruction of civilian infrastructures and the rising number of internally displace people in Lebanon."

However the statement avoided direct condemnation of Israel and is milder than a draft originally proposed by China and backed by other Security Council members. The United States vetoed the first draft, which would have expressed shock at Israel's "apparently deliberate targeting" of the UN base and condemned "this coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post."

The US insisted on dropping any allusion to the possibility that Israel had deliberately targeted the UN post, which was not far from the Hezbollah "stronghold" town of Khiam, near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

However, the US has branded "outrageous" the notion that the world had given its blessing to continue its heavy bombardment  of southern Lebanon. Israel Justice Minister Haim Raim told Army Radio on Thursday, "We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world… to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed."

But, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said on Friday, "Any such statement is outrageous. The United States is sparing no effort to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict." The United States is increasingly concerned that its stance supporting Israel's right of self-defense is alienating key European partners and putting its relations in the Arab world under severe strain. European leaders have also claimed Raim was mistaken. "I would say just the opposite," said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir on Thursday. "Yesterday in Rome it was clear that everyone present wanted to see an end to the fighting as swiftly as possible."

Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman said he was satisfied with the United Nations statement on the deaths of the four UN observers. Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya, however, called the language "watered down." UN General Secretary Kofi Annan seemed to retreat from his remark on Tuesday that the bombing was "apparently deliberate." After a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from a peace conference in Rome on Wednesday, in which Olmert expressed "deep regret over the mistaken killing of four UN peacekeepers," Annan said, "I am grateful for the prime minister for what he has said, and we accept his words."

Ambassador Gillerman also said Israel would conduct its own independent investigation into the bombing, without involvement by the UN. He said other nations -- the US, Great Britain, France, or Italy -- would never accept a joint investigation in similar circumstances.

Israel claims it was bombing Hezbollah positions near the UN post. It also points out that the current UN mission to Lebanon, UNIFIL, has been there since 1978 without managing to protect Israel from terrorist missiles. For critics of Israel, though, the longstanding UN presence is exactly the point -- they argue that the bombed post was clearly marked, and that Israeli forces had been asked on Tuesday to hold their fire.

Preparing for a wider war?

Meanwhile, a massive Israeli bombardment of targets in villages near the port city of Tyre in Lebanon killed at least 10 people on Friday. Israeli warplanes also hammered parts of Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley as well as a village near the market town of Nabatiyeh on Friday morning. Three people died and nine people were wounded, according to Lebanese security officials. Israeli Radio said the Bekaa Valley targets included a base where long-range rockets were stored. Dozens of Hezbollah rockets continued to land in northern Israel on Thursday, wounding four people.

Israel has also announced a callup of at least 15,000 reserve soldiers but ruled out a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon -- for now. "We are preparing reserves who will be ready until an order is given (to deploy)," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a news conference on Thursday.

A total of 33 Israeli soldiers have died in two and a half weeks of fighting, and 19 civilians have been killed by Hezbollah's rocket attacks, the Israeli army has said. Lebanese Health Minister Jawad Khalifeh told the Associated Press that 382 Lebanese civilians were confirmed dead. Those civilian deaths, combined with casualty figures released by the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah guerrillas, bring the confirmed death toll on the Lebanese side to at least 437.