The European Union has said that Israel had drawn the wrong conclusion from yesterday's conference in Rome by believing it had been given the green light to continue its offensive in Lebanon
Finnish foreign minister Mr Erkki Tuomioja denied an assertion made today by a senior Israeli cabinet member that the failure of yesterday's conference to call for an immediate ceasefire was tantamount to the world giving tacit approval to Israel to continue with its military offensive.
"It is their own and wrong interpretation," Mr Tuomioja said during an interview today.
Finland, which holds the EU presidency chaired yesterday's meeting in Rome where the United States and Britain combined to block a move by European and Arab countries to demand an immediate ceasefire.
"There will be no lasting peace unless the peace between Israel and Palestinians is reached," Mr Tuomioja added.
Israel's Minister for Justice Haim Ramon had earlier claimed that the failure of yesterday's conference to call for an immediate ceasefire gave it tacit approval to continue with its military offensive.
"We received yesterday in the Rome conference permission, in effect, from the world . . . to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah's presence is erased in Lebanon and it is disarmed," he told Israeli Army Radio earlier today.
Mr Ramon is considered a confidant of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
In his interview with Army Radio, Ramon also said the Israeli air force must bomb villages before ground forces enter, suggesting that this would help prevent Israeli casualties in the future.
Asked whether entire villages should be flattened, he said: "These places are not villages. They are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating."
Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in villages across the border region in southern Lebanon, according to humanitarian officials.
While foreign ministers at the crisis conference pledged to work urgently for a "lasting, permanent and sustainable" ceasefire they did not call for the fighting to stop now, as Lebanon and its Arab allies had demanded.
The United States has backed Israeli demands for Hizbullah to pull back from the border and ultimately disarm.
It is understood Britain and the United States were deliberately delaying the diplomatic process to give Israel more time to complete its military operations against Hizbullah.
Delegates eventually agreed that a UN- mandated international force was needed to secure the Israel-Lebanon border, urging Israel to exercise "utmost restraint" in its assault on Lebanon.