Click to play videoBeirut : UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Israeli and Lebanese leaders have agreed to a ceasefire at 0500 GMT on Monday to end a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli forces pushed deeper into Lebanon and up to 17 soldiers were reported killed on Saturday in what would be Israel's worst single day for deaths, as the United Nations prepared to send up to 15,000 troops to help enforce the truce.
The Israeli YNET News Internet site quoted an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office as saying Israeli troops would start withdrawing from south Lebanon within a week or two when the UN force and the Lebanese army arrived in the area.
Olmert has backed a UN Security Council resolution passed on Friday that called for a ceasefire and set out proposals to implement it. He was expected to ask his cabinet on Sunday to formally approve the resolution.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said his government unanimously approved the resolution on Saturday, and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his fighters would abide by it once Israeli forces also adhered to it.
"I am very happy to announce (Olmert and Siniora) have agreed that the cessation of hostilities and the end of the fighting will enter into force on 14 August at 0500 hours GMT," Annan said in a statement in New York.
"Preferably, the fighting should stop now to respect the spirit and intent of the Security Council decision, the object of which was to save civilian lives, to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through," he added.
At least 1,061 people in Lebanon and 135 Israelis have been killed in the war, triggered on July 12 when Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
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