BEIRUT, July 23: The UN relief chief condemned Israel on Sunday for “violating humanitarian law” over its blistering raids on Lebanon as the Jewish state and Hezbollah killed more civilians in another wave of attacks.

As Israel tightened its grip on a strategic border village seized in south Lebanon, Syria fuelled fears the fighting could spread by issuing a warning that it would intervene if Israel dared launch a full-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 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 suburbs 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 air strikes across Lebanon on the 12th day of Israel’s punishing war on Hezbollah.

The militant group 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 main southern city of Sidon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese have sought refuge from the relentless Israeli offensive.

A three-storey building housing a Hezbollah religious centre was hit.

Hezbollah responded with a new hail of rocket fire on Israel’s third city of Haifa, killing two people.

Streams of people, many waving white flags, are making a desperate trek from southern Lebanon after Israel ordered them to leave their homes, raising fears it was planning a large-scale ground invasion.

Around 360 people have been killed in Israel’s massive blitz against Lebanon. A total of 37 Israelis have died.

Syria, blamed by the United States for stoking the conflict, warned that if Israel invaded Lebanon it would have no choice but to respond.

“If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 kilometres of Damascus,” Information Minister Moshen Bilal told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

“What will we do? Stand by with our arms folded? Absolutely not. Without any doubt Syria will intervene in the conflict.”

US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton rebuffed a previous Syrian offer of dialogue in characteristically blunt fashion, saying “Syria doesn’t need dialogue to know what they need to do.”

Israel, which has called up thousands of reserve soldiers and massed its troops on the border, seized control of the strategic hilltop village of Marun Al-Ras on Saturday after sending tanks, bulldozers and armoured cars rolling across the border.

An unarmed UN military observer was seriously wounded in an exchange of fire in the village on Sunday.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz insisted Israel did not plan a wide-scale invasion. “The ground operation is focusing on a limited entry of forces,” he told the cabinet. “We are not dealing with an invasion of Lebanon.”—AFP