UN condemns israel for the use of cluster bombs

darkcrow

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5299938.stm

UN denounces Israel cluster bombs

Cluster bombs are causing injuries and deaths daily, the UN says
The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.
UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

Israel has repeated its previous insistence that munitions it uses in conflict comply with international law.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed UN chief Kofi Annan's calls for a swift end to Israel's air and sea blockade of Lebanon.

After talks with Mr Annan, Mr Olmert said the siege would only be lifted once the ceasefire terms were fully implemented.

This included the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah militants sparked the conflict.

But a Lebanese Hezbollah cabinet minister said there would be no unconditional release of the soldiers - the pair would only be freed as a result of a prisoner exchange with Israel.

Every day, people are maimed, wounded and killed by these weapons - it shouldn't have happened

Jan Egeland
UN humanitarian chief

UN efforts to rid Lebanon of cluster bombs have been under way since the conflict ended. Earlier estimates from UN experts had suggested a total of about 100 cluster bomb sites.

Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as "shocking new information".

"What's shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.

The UN ceasefire resolution which ended the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was agreed by the Security Council on Friday, 11 August, and came into effect on Monday, 14 August.




Factfile: Cluster bombs
Cluster bomb clean-up fears

Mr Egeland added: "Cluster bombs have affected large areas - lots of homes, lots of farmland. They will be with us for many months, possibly years.

"Every day, people are maimed, wounded and killed by these weapons. It shouldn't have happened."

Mr Egeland said his information had come from the UN Mine Action Co-ordination Centre, which had undertaken assessments of nearly 85% of the bombed areas in Lebanon.

Earlier this week the US state department launched an inquiry into whether Israel misused US-made cluster bombs in Lebanon during the conflict.

A senior White House official told the BBC that the investigation would focus on whether US-made weapons were used against non-military targets.

Blockade defended

At their talks in Jerusalem, Mr Annan and Mr Olmert discussed the deployment of UN troops in Lebanon as well as the continuing blockade.

The UN chief said he hoped Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon once 5,000 UN peacekeepers were on the ground "in the coming days and weeks".

The BBC's Jill McGivering, in Jerusalem, said Mr Annan and Mr Olmert emerged from their meeting with little sign of the gap between them having narrowed.


Ehud Olmert rebuffed Kofi Annan's call


Olmert and Annan

Mr Annan's Jerusalem talks followed a visit to Lebanon as part of a regional tour aimed at bolstering the truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

After his talks in Israel, Mr Annan flew to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

At a joint press conference in Ramallah, Mr Annan said that more than 200 Palestinians had been killed since the end of June, and the violence had to stop.

Mr Annan has now arrived in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II, after which he is expected to proceed to Syria.

rebornFixer

I am thinking that Hezbollah, with all its money and humanitarian goodwill, should clean them up. They wouldn't be there if they hadn't have captured those soldiers, after all.

As for the UN ... This time they have a point. 90% of the time, they are just harassing Israel with "condemnations" of various sorts. What are the odds that the U.S. takes this seriously? I think the boy has cried wolf too many times.

darkcrow

the use of cluster bombs in any situation is deeply immoral. the bomblets can look like toys to children and then when they play with them, they have their heads blown off.
personally i dont care weather it was israel or palastine or mexico... cluster bombs should be banned, along with mines.

binauralsounds

The U.N. should condemn themselves for being a fraud of an organization!

monkey spanker

darkcrow wrote:

the use of cluster bombs in any situation is deeply immoral. the bomblets can look like toys to children and then when they play with them, they have their heads blown off.
personally i dont care weather it was israel or palastine or mexico... cluster bombs should be banned, along with mines.

not true. they are a great weapon when used against soft targets out in the field. but in this instance they should NEVER be used around a civilian population. but its really pointless what the UN thinks.

MrBrian

also most of the bombs were dropped in the last 48 hrs of the conflict while the cease fire was being worked on, leaving 100.000 left still on the ground in lebanon waiting to blow.

Puck78

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE

31 August 2006

Lebanon/Israel: Israel must disclose details of cluster bomb attacks and accept a full investigation
Amnesty International today called on Israel to immediately provide maps of the areas of Lebanon into which it fired cluster bombs during the recent conflict to enable their clearance and prevent further civilian casualties.

Publishing new accounts from the victims of unexploded cluster bombs, the organization also called on Israel to cooperate in a full and impartial investigation into their use of such munitions during the recent conflict.

The calls followed a report from the United Nations that 90 percent of Israeli cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when a ceasefire was in sight. The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center has so far identified more than 400 bomb strike areas that are contaminated with as many as 100,000 unexploded bomblets.

Amnesty International delegates in Lebanon have found numerous unexploded cluster bombs in villages and even, in some cases, inside homes.

"The use of cluster bombs in the heart of where people live clearly violates the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and is therefore a grave violation of international humanitarian law," said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International. "It is outrageous that, despite official requests from the United Nations, Israel has still not provided maps for the areas it targeted with cluster bombs. This failure is further endangering the lives of Lebanese civilians, particularly children."

Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area and many of them do not explode on impact, remaining lethal to the civilian population.

"Cluster bombs are effectively antipersonnel mines. Their widespread use in Lebanon by the Israeli military is already taking a heavy toll on the hundreds of thousands of ordinary men, women and children returning to their homes. The US, which is the main supplier of arms to Israel, and other countries, should not provide such weapons and commit to a worldwide moratorium on their use," said Kate Gilmore.

A current Amnesty International mission to Lebanon has spoken to some of the victims of unexploded cluster bombs among the hundreds of thousands of civilians returning to their homes in Southern Lebanon.
Six-year-old ‘Abbas Yusef Shibli described to Amnesty International delegates how a cluster bomb exploded as he tried to pick it up in the village of Blida on 26 August. Speaking from a hospital bed, Abbas said he was playing with three friends when he tried to pick up what looked like a “perfume bottle”. Abbas suffered a ruptured colon, ruptured gall bladder, perforated lung and torn medial nerve and has so far undergone two blood transfusions. His three playmates were also injured, but discharged after two days.

In the next room, Mahmud Yaqub, a 38-year-old shepherd, lay with his leg in plaster having had it shattered when he stepped on a cluster bomb. Mahmud said he’d lost four of his 21 goats during the Israeli attacks as they were unable to get to water. He was rarely able to take them outside during the fighting and now, since the ceasefire, cluster bombs litter the hillsides which are their normal pasture.

At another hospital, Amnesty International visited 13-year-old Hassan Hussein Hamadi who remains in a coma after surgery. His family said that, on 27 August, he and his five brothers and sisters had been playing in the front yard of their home in the village of Deir al-Qanun south of Tyre when he picked up a canister type cluster bomb that then exploded. The explosion blew off four fingers of his right hand, leaving only his little finger and he sustained major injuries to his shoulder and abdomen.

19-year-old Hussein Qaduh, a student in accounting at the Beirut Islamic Technical Institute, was severely injured by a cluster bomb on 28 August in the southern Lebanese village of Soultaniye as he walked along a path in the village next to a football field. When Amnesty International delegates visited the area the next day, they found it was littered with unexploded cluster munitions, some of them a few inches from the path, where the blood was still visible on the ground. Hussein underwent extensive surgery for haemorrhaging in the intestines and liver. This was stopped but bleeding continued in the brain. His prognosis was described as extremely critical.

Amnesty International reiterated that Israel's use of cluster bombs underlined the need for an immediate and comprehensive UN investigation into this and other violations of international humanitarian law committed by both Israel and Hizbullah during this conflict.