Israel accused of littering Lebanon with unexploded bombs

Pressure for an international ban on cluster bombs intensified yesterday as Israel was accused of littering southern Lebanon with thousands of unexploded bombs in the final hours of its war against Hizbollah.

Campaigners accused the Israeli Defence Force of leaving a "minefield" of deadly bomblets in villages and fields after firing hundreds of cluster shells, rockets and bombs across its northern border in the three days before hostilities ended earlier this month.

United Nations officials warned that 12 people had been killed, and another 49 injured by unexploded bombs since the war ended and said the casualty rate was likely to rise.

The Israeli Government insists that it did not target civilians during the conflict and says all weaponry used was in accordance with international law.

The Israeli Government insists that its use of weaponry is legal, However, anti-landmine campaigners have been pressing for an international ban on their use, arguing that cluster bombs are indiscriminate and their use in populated areas may contravene international law.

Mine clearance specialists said densely populated southern Lebanon was blighted by thousands of unexploded bomblets, which can kill or maim if they are moved or touched.

In one case this week 35 bomblets were cleared from in and around one house, while in another a woman lost her hands when a bomblet apparently became tangled in her tobacco crop.

Yesterday the United Nations official in charge of bomb disposal in southern Lebanon said his staff had identified 390 strikes by cluster munitions, and had disposed of more than 2000 bomblets since the ceasefire.

Chris Clarke, head of the UN mine action service in Southern Lebanon, said it was the most serious example of the aftermath of cluster bomb attacks he had encountered in any war-zone across the globe.

"This is without a doubt the worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination I have ever seen," he said.

In a presentation at the international conference on conventional weapons in Geneva yesterday, he said that the "vast majority" of cluster bombs had been fired by the Israeli Defence Force in the final three days of the conflict across the Lebanese border, prompting campaigners to accuse the Israeli government of targeting the civilian population.

Mr Clark, who has worked in bomb clearance in Sudan, Kosovo, Kuwait and Bosnia, said the number of confirmed strikes was "climbing every day".

He said: "They are everywhere in South Lebanon. We are still looking. Pretty much the whole of South Lebanon is carpeted with these things."

He predicted that specialists would take up to six months to remove the worst threat from unexploded weaponry and said full clearance could take a further year.

Speaking from Lebanon yesterday Sean Sutton, of the Manchester based clearance charity the Mines Action Group, which has 80 staff clearing the unexploded bombs, said: "This is pretty widespread across the whole of Southern Lebanon.

"There are literally thousands of unexploded munitions in and around the remains of people's homes and on the roads and streets."

Simon Conway, director of the British charity Landmine Action, condemned the Israeli government's "cynical" use of the weapons in the days leading up to the ceasefire.

He said: "The premeditated targeting of residential areas with high failure-rate cluster munitions in the final days of the conflict means that the rubble filled villages of Southern Lebanon have been deliberately turned into minefields that will indiscriminately kill civilians for years to come."

Yesterday the charity published a report highlighting the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and calling for an immediate international ban on their use Frank Cook, Labour chairman of the Commons all party Landmine group, added:

"These weapons are totally indiscriminate which is why in my view they are unacceptable. For them to be used by Israel among a civilian population is quite outrageously inexcusable."

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in London insisted the country's armed forces did not target civilians.

He said: "Israel does not use any weaponry that is forbidden under international law or conventions. Israel does not deliberately target civilians."

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