BRITAIN: Tony Blair yesterday responded to a growing backbench and cabinet revolt over his handling of the Middle East crisis by saying the Qana bombing showed that a peace agreement must be reached.
Mr Blair has been under mounting internal criticism for refusing to endorse calls for an immediate unconditional ceasefire or to condemn the Israeli bombing as disproportionate.
He has instead focused on securing a UN resolution to deploy a multinational force in southern Lebanon.
"What happened at Qana shows this situation simply cannot continue," he said last night. "This is an absolutely tragic situation, but we have got to make sure the discussions we are having and the negotiations we are conducting does lead to a genuine cessation of hostilities."
Downing Street slapped down the former foreign secretary Jack Straw, who at the weekend condemned Israeli action as disproportionate and likely to undermine support across the Middle East.
Mr Blair's spokesman denied a cabinet revolt over his handling of the issue, although cabinet sources said there was widespread concern that the prime minister's position leaves the government open to the charge that it is indifferent to the suffering of the Lebanese people.
Some cabinet members pointed out that Mr Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, had not voiced concerns in last week's cabinet meeting.
The leading figure to express concern at the Israeli action was David Miliband, the food, environment and rural affairs secretary.
Speaking during a round of interviews in the US, Mr Blair told Channel 5: "There was a perfectly good discussion at the cabinet actually and it certainly wasn't a divisive discussion at all. Of course what they were saying is 'let us make sure with urgency we can stop a situation that's killing innocent people'."
Mr Blair was expected to reassert robustly his view that the "underlying cause" of the conflict - Islamic terrorism - must be addressed when he made a speech to executives from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp organisation in California last night.
The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said the government was "united" around the goal of ending the conflict.
"There's not a single person in the cabinet who is not desperately anxious about the situation, isn't really worried and concerned and wanting to do everything we can to bring it to an end, and agonising over whether we are in fact doing everything we can and how can we do more."
Asked on Sky News what she disagreed with in Mr Straw's statement, she said: "I don't use the words Jack used about a number of things, for precisely the reason that I sometimes think it hinders understanding rather than supporting it."
She insisted the UK had "repeatedly urged on the Israelis to act proportionately".