ME: 170 sites cluster-bombed
2006-08-22 22:01
Tyre - Israel dropped cluster
bombs on at least 170 villages and other places in south Lebanon
during its 34-day war with Hezbollah, a senior United
Nations demining official said on Tuesday.
The bomblets that failed to explode are now a deadly trap
for civilians who stayed in the south or who fled and are now
returning, some to find their homes or workplaces pounded to
rubble by Israeli air strikes and artillery.
The devices are known to have killed eight people and
wounded at least 25 - including several children - since a truce
took hold on August 14, said Tekimiti Gilbert, operations chief of
the UN mine action co-ordination centre in Lebanon.
"Up to now there are 170 confirmed cluster bomb strikes in
south Lebanon," he told Reuters in the southern port of Tyre.
"It's a huge problem. There are obvious dangers with
children, people, cars. People are tripping over these things."
Gilbert said he had "no doubt" that Israel had deliberately
hit built-up areas with cluster bombs, in violation of
international law which states that such munitions must not be
used in areas where there are civilians.
"These cluster bombs were dropped in the middle of
villages," he said.
Israel denies using the weapons illegally and accuses
Hezbollah of firing rockets into Israel from civilian areas.
Clearance efforts
Gilbert said six assessment teams had been finding 30 new
cluster bomb sites a day, mostly south of the Litani River,
about 20km from Israel's border.
Large numbers had
also been found further north, around Nabatiyeh and Hasbaya.
Gilbert said it could take "up to 12 months or more" to rid
the south of the Israeli bomblets, some of which are designed to
knock out tanks, others to kill or maim people over a wide area.
Some are small, black and cylindrical, easy to overlook and
to detonate. Others are round and can look like dusty rocks.
Gilbert said four clearance teams from Mines Advisory Group, a British non-governmental organisation, had already
found and made safe more than 1 000 cluster bombs in the past
six days - usually with controlled explosions.
"Hezbollah have picked up a large number of these bombs and
put them into boxes and got them away from the children."
"It's not the approved method, but the risk is such that if
something is not done, people will die," Gilbert said.
- Reuters