Unexploded cluster bombs prompt fear and fury in returning refugees
And as Olmert continues to take risks that may end the fragile Israel/Lebanon cease-fire, children returning to Lebanon are already beginning to suffer from the disgraceful campaign he conducted there, with several suffering dreadful injuries from the cluster bombs he allowed to be dropped.
Hurdling over lumps of crushed concrete and dodging spikes of twisted metal, Sukna, Hassan and Merwa, aged 10 to 12, paused before a curious object. Sukna picked it up. The terrifying blast flung her to the ground, thrusting metal shards into her liver. Hassan's abdomen was cut open. Merwa was hit in the leg and arm.Southern Lebanon is littered with these weapons, which the UN state should not be used in civilian areas. Four people are dead so far from these munitions but officials fear the figure could eventually stretch into thousands.
"We thought it was just a little ball," said Hassan with a hoarse whisper in the intensive care ward at Tyre's Jabal Amel hospital. In the next bed Sukna, a ventilator cupped to her mouth and a tangle of tubes from her arms, said even less.Her mother watched anxiously. "The Israelis wanted to defeat Hizbullah," said Najah Saleh, 40. "But what did these children ever do to them?"
Israel started to use cluster bombs in the last week of the campaign when they became frustrated with the failure of conventional weapons to flush Hizbullah out into the open."We already had a major landmine problem from previous Israeli invasions, but this is far worse," said Chris Clark of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre in Tyre, standing before a map filled with flags indicating bomb sites.
Cluster bombs are permitted under international law, but UN and human rights officials claim Israel violated provisions forbidding their use in urban areas. "We're finding them in orange plantations, on streets, in cars, near hospitals - pretty much everywhere," Mr Clark said.
In Nabatiye, 15 people were injured in just one day along a bomb-strewn road. In Tibnin, 210 bombs were found around the town hospital. "That's about as inappropriate [a use of cluster bombs] as you can get," Mr Clark said.
Their use deserves to be condemned in the strongest possible manner as they were clearly being dropped into civilian areas. Frustration is not an adequate excuse for violating international law.
This is simply a further example of the collective punishment aspect of this campaign in which very little attempt was made to distinguish between Hizbullah and the citizens of Lebanon.
The UN are already conducting an enquiry into Israel's behaviour during this war, I would hope the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas will be included in that enquiry. It's a disgusting practice that deserves to be condemned.
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