The three men were Annan's special political advisor Vijay Nambiar, UN envoy to Middle East Alvaro de Soto and special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen.

They are scheduled to meet with Egyptian officials and consult with Arab foreign ministers, who will convene an emergency meetingin Cairo on Saturday.

Maher Nasser, director of UN Information Center in Cairo, said that the team will have talks with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and other Arab foreign ministers.

Nasser was quoted by Egypt's MENA news agency as saying that Annan sought to use the team's visit to urge all parties to do everything possible to contain the situation and to respect international and humanitarian laws to protect civilians and their infrastructure.

After Egypt, the UN team will travel to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Tensions in the Middle East have been dramatically heightened since Israel started a military offensive against Lebanon on Wednesday and pressed ahead with a massive air and ground operation on the Gaza Strip more than two weeks ago.

Dozens of Lebanese have been killed and more than 100 injured in Israeli attacks launched in the wake of a cross-border attack by Lebanese Hezbollah militants Wednesday morning, during which two Israeli soldiers were captured and eight others killed.

While in the Gaza Strip, Israel stepped up a military operation in a bid to rescue a kidnapped soldier and halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

Both Hezbollah and Palestinian militants demanded that Israel release prisoners held in Israeli jails, but Israel rejected the swap idea.