Abul Gheit made his remarks at a joint press conference with visiting Finnish counterpart Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

Abul Gheit said Egypt and other Arab nations backed Lebanon's demands to amend a U.S.-French draft resolution, adding that there were basic elements that must be included in any draft resolution.

The top Egyptian diplomat said that the current UN Security Council draft resolution failed to call for the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and also failed to tackle the issue of the Lebanese and Israeli prisoners on equal footing.

UN Security Council is now working on a revised draft resolution over the Lebanon crisis.

Tuomioja expressed hope that the ongoing talks at the Council would lead to an immediate cessation of hostilities, said MENA.

Abul Gheit said that his talks with Tuomioja reflected Egyptian, Finnish and European parties' keenness on swiftly reaching a ceasefire in Lebanon.

In addition, both Abul Gheit and Tuomioja denounced Israel's decision earlier in the day to widen military operations in Lebanon, according to MENA.

The Israeli security cabinet gave green light to the army to widen the ground operations in south Lebanon. The Israeli troops are to push to the Litani River, about 20 km from the Israel-Lebanon border, Israeli local media reported.

So far, about 1,000 Lebanese and over 100 Israelis have been killed since Israel launched a massive assault on Lebanese Hezbollah on July 12 in retaliation for the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by the Shiite group in a cross-border raid.