posted July 23, 2006 10:59 AM              

Hezbollah rockets killed two, and left a car riddled with ball bearings
The UN's Jan Egeland has condemned the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes in Beirut, saying it is a violation of humanitarian law.
Mr Egeland, the UN's emergency relief chief, described the destruction as "horrific" as he toured the city.

He arrived hours after another Israeli strike on Beirut. Israel also hit Sidon, a port city in the south crammed with refugees, for the first time.

In Haifa, two people were killed amid a volley of rockets on the Israeli city.

Images of destruction in Beirut

In pictures

Fifteen people are reported injured by the rockets, launched by Hezbollah militants over the border with Lebanon.

The BBC News website's Raffi Berg visited the scene of one of the rocket attacks in northern Haifa.

He says the rocket exploded next to a carriageway, raking passing cars with shrapnel and ball bearings and killing a man in a nearby vehicle.

'Block after block'

Mr Egeland arrived in southern Beirut on Sunday just hours after Israeli strikes on the Hezbollah stronghold.

A visibly moved Mr Egeland expressed shock that "block after block" of buildings had been levelled.

Mid-East crisis map
He said the "disproportionate response" by Israel was a "violation of international humanitarian law".

He appealed for both sides to halt attacks and said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would begin to arrive in the next few days.

"But we need safe access," he said. "So far Israel is not giving us access."

Israel has said it will lift its blockade on Beirut's port to allow aid through, but with roads, bridges and trucks among Israel's targets, transporting it around the country is difficult.

In other developments:

UK Foreign Minister Kim Howells is due to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. A day after accusing Israel of targeting "the entire Lebanese nation", he said the British government understood Israel's need to defend itself and criticised Hezbollah for hiding weapons in civilian areas.

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to leave for the Middle East later on Sunday.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel supports the idea of an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, and suggested it should be led by Nato.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel had "pushed the button for its own destruction".

Syria's information minister said his country would enter the conflict if a major Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon threatened the security of Damascus.

An unarmed UN observer was seriously wounded by small arms fire - thought to be from Hezbollah - at a UN position in the village of Maroun al-Ras, which Israeli said it had taken control of on Saturday.
Sidon targeted

Israel's bombing campaign continued, with strikes on Beirut and on southern and eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Sunday.

HAVE YOUR SAY
When one Israeli soldier is kidnapped, the whole world goes crazy, but Israel kidnapped a whole nation

Mike

Send us your comments
UK minister to meet Israeli counterpart
The Associated Press news agency reported at least eight deaths on Sunday - an eight-year-old boy, a Lebanese photographer, three civilians fleeing in a minibus, and three Hezbollah fighters.

One target was the southern port of Sidon, a city not previously targeted by Israel, where 42,000 refugees from the surrounding area have flooded in the hope of safety.

The BBC's Roger Hearing in the city reports that a mosque was destroyed in one strike, which hit less than 500m (550 yards) from a hospital; fourteen people were injured, mostly refugees.

While Israel said the mosque was a meeting place for Hezbollah militants, local doctors insisted it was just "a place for prayers".

Bombing intensifies

The BBC's Jim Muir in the southern city of Tyre says there has also been intense bombardment there, striking at least nine civilian vehicles. Some were hit within sight of hospitals where they were trying to take injured people, he says.

Further east, engineers trying to mend impassable roads to allow a UN-escorted aid convoy also came under fire, our correspondent reports.

He says that bombing has intensified in the region since Israel dropped warning leaflets on Friday, and the Israelis are now shooting at almost anything on moving on the roads.

More than 350 Lebanese have been killed in the 11 days of violence, many of them civilians, and angry protests condemning Israeli attacks have been held in cities around the world.

At least 36 Israelis have been killed, including 17 civilians killed by rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel.

Israel bombing breaks humanitarian law - UN official
Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:46 AM BST

By Tom Perry
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli bombing of a Beirut neighbourhood where Hizbollah had its headquarters has breached humanitarian law, a senior U.N. official said on Sunday.
"It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses," Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, told reporters as he toured the shattered Haret Hreik district. "It makes it a violation of humanitarian law."
"It's bigger, it's more extensive than I even could imagine," he said, surveying a pile of rubble.
Israeli warplanes have pounded the area nearly every night since its war with Hizbollah began on July 12.
It was last hit early on Sunday, said the few residents not to have fled the usually packed area.
Egeland said between half a million and a million people were in need of international assistance in Lebanon, but delivering aid required safe access. "So far Israel is not giving us access," he said.
Egeland plans to travel to Israel on Tuesday to negotiate safe corridors by land, sea and air. He has estimated that $100 million (54 million pounds) is urgently needed to help avert a humanitarian crisis.
"There is definitely a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Lebanon," he said. Israel's bombardment of its northern neighbour has killed 359 people, mostly civilians. Continued...
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-23T094600Z_01_L23862127_RTRUKOC_0_UK-MIDEAST-EGELAND.xml