UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Thursday in New York to discuss the situation in the Middle East, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown announced Wednesday.

"It will be a private dinner," Brown told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. "There will be a broader meeting, either before it or the following morning with the mission and others."

He stressed that "we are trying to get everybody on the same page about the facts of what's happening in this very confusing situation."

There is a common international position because there is no doubt that the ability of the international community to influence these extremely dangerous events in the region will be enormously helped if everybody is as close to each other as possible in terms of the messages they are delivering to the leaders of the region, he argued.

The deputy secretary-general also announced that Annan will address the Security Council Thursday on the situation in the Middle East.

The secretary-general "didn't want the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Lebanon and Gaza to go unnoted by us in the meantime, and so the need to bring this to a stop while we find a longer term political and security solution is one that he will be stressing tomorrow in the council," the deputy secretary-general said.

Brown further explained that the secretary-general preferred a "cessation of hostilities" which is at initial stage just both sides stop confrontation.

He mentioned three phases, which are to stop the killing of civilians, to put in place a negotiated longer term settlement, and to look at enhancing the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) with perhaps a new mission with a robuster mandate and perhaps more force.

Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed 57 civilians and a Hezbollah fighter Wednesday, the deadliest toll of the eight-day-old war, as thousands of villagers fled north and more foreigners were evacuated.

(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2006)