An officer of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) inspects a building ruined by Israeli air strikes in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre. -Xinhua/AFP

Despite repeated protests to Israel by senior UN officials, the UN post in southern Lebanon where four observers were killed had come under recurrent Israeli shelling for nearly six hours, a top UN official said yesterday.

The patrol base, a long-established and clearly-marked UN position near the town of Khiam, received a total of 21 strikes occurred within 300 meters of its perimeter, four of which hit the base directly, said Jane Holl Lute, assistant UN secretary-general for peacekeeping operations.

"Throughout the day, UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon) had protested, directly to the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) each of these incidents of firing close to the Patrol Base Khiam," said Lute.

Lute said she and Deputy Secretary-General Malloch Brown had made several calls to the Israeli mission to the UN, "reiterating these protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling."

"Two final firings close were reported before communications with the position were lost," she said.

A rescue team sent to the post found "the shelter collapsed and major damage to the rest of the position," said Lute, adding that "firing continued during the rescue operation, despite repeated requests to the IDF for an abatement."

UNIFIL has reported 145 similar incidents, of which 16 were direct hits, causing various degrees of damage to buildings, equipment and vehicles, said Lute.

After wrapping up a discussion in the morning, members of the Security Council agreed to adopt a presidential statement on the incident in which a Chinese observer and his three colleagues from Finland, Austria and Canada were killed.

The French envoy to the UN, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, expressed hope that the statement will be adopted by consensus by the end of the day.