According to Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian aid chief, 90 percent of those bombs were dropped by the Israeli Air force after the Israeli authorities knew that UN ceasefire Resolution 1701 was about to be adopted by the Security Council.
The bomblets, half the size of a can of soda, are lying in people's houses, gardens, on the street and on farmland. Fired by cannon or dropped from an aircraft, the bombs release hundreds of smaller bomblets in mid-air that are supposed to explode upon impact.
So far, UN and Lebanese de-mining teams have identified 590 cluster bomb strike locations. UN de-mining experts said Tuesday that up to a million unexploded cluster bombs fired by the Zionist army could be in south Lebanon, nearly three times as many as previously estimated. Israel has not responded to repeated UN requests to hand over detailed information about the cluster bomb strikes, making the task of clearing the bomblets far more difficult.
A number of people, mostly children, have been killed or badly injured by the unexploded bomblets. Since bomblets are dispersed over a wide area, many more innocent people are expected to die or to suffer from permanent disabilities in the coming days and months.
The UN refugee agency said that 200,000 people were still displaced in south Lebanon because it was unsafe to return to their homes and it could take two years before they could all do so.
This was not the first time that Israel has used cluster bombs against civilians in Lebanon. In its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel also resorted to this terrible weapon of war. The United States, which has been supplying Israel with cluster bombs since the seventies, banned sales for a while to express its displeasure with its ally for not confining the use of the bomb to military targets. It should be observed in this regard that cluster bombs are not illegal as long as they are not deployed against civilians. When they target civilians they constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The U.S. State Department has said that it is investigating Israel’s alleged abuse of cluster bombs in the recent conflict in Lebanon. No one expects the U.S. to punish or penalize Israel. After all, the U.S. itself has been using cluster bombs for decades. From Laos and Cambodia to Guatemala and Nicaragua, this is a U.S. weapon of war that has brought death and misery to thousands of innocent human beings. In fact, in the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. and British military used cluster bombs on an extensive scale.
Israel is not the only terrorist state. It has always had company.
MS/HG
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MNA
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