France and the United States reached agreement this evening on a draft resolution for halting the bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel, British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett said.
The full 15-nation UN Security Council gets the new revised text shortly and a vote was expected late tonight, British, US and French officials said.
Israel and Lebanon have received the draft but Ms Beckett said sponsors of the resolution would push ahead for a vote, regardless of their response, following days of consultations with both governments.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ms Beckett had arrived in New York expecting to participate in last-minute talks. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was en route to New York.
Ms Rice phoned both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to try to get them to accept the text, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The draft resolution, forged on the same day Israel ordered an expansion of its ground offensive, calls for an immediate "cessation of hostilities" followed by a phased withdrawal of Israeli units as the Lebanese army and an expanded UN peacekeeping force move into the south.
Ms Beckett said Israel and Lebanon were expected to agree but she did not expect either country to "go out and say we accept every bit of text but that they would implement the text."
She cautioned that the resolution was a short-term plan. "We're not here trying to solve all the problems of the Middle East overnight," Ms Beckett said.
At the insistence of Lebanon, the United States and Britain agreed to drop a reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which permits a robust UN peacekeeping operation and instead put the resolution under the weaker Chapter 6.
British UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the text would carry language that would permit peacekeepers to use force to implement their mission.
More than 1,000 Lebanese and 121 Israelis have been killed in the five-week-old war that began on July 12th with the cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah guerrillas.
Lebanon had rejected an international force not under UN control while Israel, which planned to deploy more troops in Lebanon, insisted on a strong multinational force before it would withdraw.
The latest compromise proposal calls for a phased withdrawal by Israeli troops as the Lebanese army deploys 15,000 troops in the south, controlled by Hizbullah.
At the same time, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, would be reinforced by French and other troops, perhaps as many as 15,000. As part of the deal, Hizbullah would pull out from south of the Litani River, 13 miles (20 km) from the Israeli border.
But the text is not expected to define when Hizbullah would be disarmed and by whom, as called for in previous UN resolutions.