His doctors say the severe burns on his chest, face, hands, legs and back were caused by phosphorous incendiary bombs dropped by the Israelis on civilian areas in southern Lebanon.

"Was my mother also burned?" he cries.

But he has not been told that his mother is dead. Hussein is suffering enough pain already.

He was rushed to the Beirut hospital from the southern town of Naqura where an Israeli air strike destroyed his home this week, killing his mother and 11-year-old sister.

Mohammed Salam, who leads civil defence rescue workers in the southern port city of Tyre, described a recent operation after another air strike destroyed a house in the nearby village of Bazuriyeh.

First they evacuated a woman and her daughter who were wounded and unconscious. But there was another tiny victim under the debris.

"I found a nine-month-old boy called Yussef Nisr wrapped in blankets in the rubble. I carried him outside toward the ambulance. And when I unwrapped him his body suddenly turned black from the contact with oxygen."

"He was wounded by phosphorous incendiary bombs," Salam says.

The Lebanese authorities and rights activists say such cases prove Israel has deployed weapons whose use is strictly regulated in civilian areas. More than 380 civilians have been killed since the offensive began on July 12.