As a host of top European diplomats descended on the region, Syria fueled fears the fighting could spread, issuing a stark warning that it would intervene if Israel invaded Lebanon.

An Israeli soldier sits atop his mobile artillery unit. Israeli warplanes have blitzed southern and eastern Lebanon after troops in tanks and armoured cars punched across the border and seized a strategic village, intensifying the war on Hezbollah despite mounting concern over the plight of civilians. [AFP]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is 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 and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.

At least five people were killed in air strikes across southern and eastern Lebanon Sunday as Israel kept up its punishing war on Hezbollah following the seizure of a strategic border village by Israeli ground forces on Saturday.

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.

Israel also targeted Hezbollah's power base in Beirut's Shiite-dominated southern suburbs and struck factories, roads and bridges in air strikes in the eastern Baalbek region.

Shiite guerrillas 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 largescale ground invasion.

Close to 360 people have been killed in Israel's massive blitz against Lebanon which was launched after the capture of two soldiers by guerrillas from the Shiite Muslim group in a deadly border attack on July 12.

A total of 37 Israelis have died.

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