The UN relief chief condemned Israel yesterday for “violating humanitarian law” over its blistering raids on Lebanon as the Jewish state killed more civilians in another wave of attacks. As Israel tightened its grip on a strategic border village seized in south Lebanon, Syria fueled fears the fighting could spread by issuing a warning that it would intervene if Israel dared to launch an all-out invasion of Lebanon. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was also heading to the Middle East with Washington increasingly estranged from European and Arab allies over a conflict that has killed close to 400 people in just 12 days and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.UN Humanitarian Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, in Beirut to launch an urgent appeal for funds for half a million people made homeless by the conflict, made no attempt to hide his fury as he toured bombed-out areas. “This is destruction of block after block of mainly residential areas. I would say it seems to be an excessive use of force in an area with so many citizens,” he told reporters in the southern suburb of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. Asked if the Israeli raid that destroyed the burned-out buildings before him constituted a war crime, he replied: “It makes it a violation of humanitarian law.”
His comments came as at least eight civilians, including a Lebanese press photographer, were killed in new Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon on the 12th day of IsraelÂ’s punishing war on Hezbollah. Hezbollah said three of its fighters had also been killed. In a wave of pre-dawn raids, fighter-bombers for the first time struck directly inside the southern city of Sidon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese have sought refuge from the relentless Israeli offensive. A three-story building housing a Hezbollah religious center was hit. Hezbollah responded with a new hail of rocket fire on Haifa, killing one person in his car and a second as he worked in a warehouse.