TEL AVIV, Oct 18: Israel's hardline policies in the Gaza Strip came under double attack on Monday when a leading rights group and a UN agency chief both accused it of violating international law.

A report by Human Rights Watch said the destruction of thousands of homes in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt, could not be justified on military grounds.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Peter Hansen, said a recent offensive in northern Gaza had left up to 700 people homeless.

The Human Rights Watch report, entitled: "Razing Rafah - Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip", said: "The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law."

The New York-based organization's executive director Kenneth Roth questioned Israel's insistence that the demolition of more than 2,500 houses over the past four years was necessary to destroy underground tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

Rather, he said the demolitions were about "creating a buffer zone, slice by slice" to facilitate long-term control over the Gaza Strip.

"The army is not serious, it wants to use the excuse (of tunnels) to invade, destroy and create a buffer zone," he told reporters at the launch of the report.

"Israel's conduct in southern Gaza stems from the assumption that every Palestinian is a suicide bomber and every home a base for attack."

Mr Roth also warned that such a mindset was incompatible with international humanitarian law under which an occupying power must distinguish between civilians and combatants, and protect civilians.

"The goal is also to punish civilians for the conduct of militants. It is wrong to attack civilians and civilian property to achieve military objectives and try to influence militants," he said.

There was no immediate Israeli response to the Human Rights Watch report.

The accusations of international law violations were echoed by Mr Hansen as he toured the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, the focus of the recently ended Operation Days of Penitence that left around 130 Palestinians dead in less than three weeks.

"Most of what we have seen here in Jabaliya over the last two weeks is a gross violation of international and humanitarian law," he said. -AFP