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Israel cluster bombs continue killing Lebanese civilians, UN
haaretz.com — UNMACC has led efforts to clear 10,000 unexploded cluster bomblets remaining after Israel's retreat from Hezbollah. Israel illegally fired or dropped most of the munitions in the last 72 hours of an Aug. 14 ceasefire. 27 civilians have been killed and 234 wounded by cluster munitions. 13 UN bomb disposal experts were killed and 39 maimed
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- RightHand, on 08/25/2008, -5/+12Many of the 44 teams clearing cluster munitions scattered by Israel in south Lebanon during its 2006 war with Hezbollah will have to stop work this month for lack of funds, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday.
Donors have failed to come up with a promised $4.7 million needed to fund the program in 2008, according to Dalya Farran of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC).
"A very large number of the clearance teams will be stopping by the end of this month if we don't get funds before that," she said, adding that some donor countries had not kept their promises and others had lost interest two years after the war.
... Ha'aretz- roosevans, on 08/29/2008, -0/+2FTA:
"A very large number of the clearance teams will be stopping by the end of this month if we don't get funds before that," she said, adding that some donor countries had not kept their promises and others had lost interest two years after the war.
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UNMACC has led efforts to clear thousands of unexploded cluster bomblets left over after Israel's war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel fired or dropped most of the munitions in the last 72 hours before an Aug. 14 ceasefire."
- roosevans, on 08/29/2008, -0/+2FTA:
- dkapuchino, on 08/25/2008, -13/+7The article is important. The description is lies and falsifications.
Israel used only Legal munitions. The cease fire came into effect only after the last 72 hours. Up until the cease fire, Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into Israeli towns, killing Israeli civilians.
This is the sad result of War. The blame is only on Hezbollah, for launching their attacks on Israel from within Residential areas, starting an Unjust and uncalled for war with Israel. One can only hope Hezbollah will never launch attacks on Israel again, seeing what devastating effects war has on the lives of the Lebanese.- writie, on 08/26/2008, -2/+3"One can only hope Hezbollah will never launch attacks on Israel again"
Hear, hear. But that doesn't stop the scattering of cluster bombs on the brink of a truce totally unacceptable, I'm afraid. - RightHand, on 08/26/2008, -4/+4Yes, Zionist lies and falsifications and myths
25/12/2007
IDF won't take legal action against officers for firing cluster bombs in Lebanon
By Haaretz Correspondents and AP , By Amos Harel and Yuval Azoulay
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/937953.html
FTA
The Israel Defense Forces will not take legal action against senior officers who were involved in the firing of cluster bombs into populated areas in southern Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War, the Military Advocate General (MAG) said yesterday.
Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit acknowledged that cluster bombs were fired into populated areas,
In Beirut, a Lebanese government official rejected Mandelblit's decision, saying that the decision "indicates that there is no difference between the judicial authority and political authority in Israel. They all work to commit and cover up crimes which are against humanity."
The IDF used three main types of cluster munitions in the war: those dropped through air force bombs; others fired through artillery; and in rockets fired by the Multiple Launch Rocket System.
In the past Israel had promised to the U.S., which provided the ammunition, not to use cluster bombs against populated areas.
Wartime Chief of Staff Dan Halutz issued similar restrictions, on a number of occasions, to Northern Command.
However, in practice the IDF fired thousands of cluster munitions during the war, some of which targeted populated areas.
During the IDF investigation it emerged that the air force did not violate the instructions, but the artillery and rocket batteries, commanded by the Northern Command officers, did fire into populated areas
... Ha'aretz
better to come - RightHand, on 08/26/2008, -4/+4Robert Fisk: The gardens of the devil, still sowing death
The foundation of their lives remains the war that was fought before they were born
Saturday, 1 March 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ ...
FTA
Israel rained more than a million bomblets into the orchards and fields of southern Lebanon in 2006 – after the ceasefire to the 34-day Israel-Hizbollah conflict had been announced. So far, post-war, they have killed more than 40 men, women and children. Some of the mine disposal men and women who turned up in Lebanon found that the cluster bombs had themselves been dropped on minefields left behind by the Israelis in 2000.
... Independent
NB 'After' in "Israel rained more than a million bomblets into the orchards and fields of southern Lebanon in 2006 – after the ceasefire to the 34-day Israel-Hizbollah conflict..." - RightHand, on 08/26/2008, -4/+3August 17, 2007
In 2006 Lebanon War, Most Crimes Were Israeli
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=114 ... Jonathan Cook
FTA
A shocking aspect of the war was Israel's firing of at least a million cluster bombs, old munitions supplied by the US with a failure rate as high as 50 per cent, in the last days of fighting. The tiny bomblets, effectively small land mines, were left littering south Lebanon after the UN-brokered ceasefire, and are reported so far to have killed 30 civilians and wounded at least another 180. Israeli commanders have admitted firing 1.2 million such bomblets, while the UN puts the figure closer to 3 million.
At the time, it looked suspiciously as if Israel had taken the brief opportunity before the war's end to make south Lebanon – the heartland of both the country's Shi'ite population and its militia, Hezbollah – uninhabitable, and to prevent the return of hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites who had fled Israel's earlier bombing campaigns.
Israel's use of cluster bombs has been described as a war crime by human rights organizations. According to the rules set by Israel's then-chief of staff, Dan Halutz, the bombs should have been used only in open and unpopulated areas – although with such a high failure rate, this would have done little to prevent later civilian casualties.
... Antiwar
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The only explanation they makes sense to me was the the IDF was in such a funk after the drubbing that Hizbollah gave them that they were prepared to do anything to cover their cowardly retreat back across the border and the UN would go back to protecting their border for them. Then it was the turn of Gaza's women and children to be slaughtered from the sky. - RightHand, on 08/26/2008, -4/+4Belgian Defense Minister: Israel must pay to clear cluster bombs in Lebanon
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/849415.html
FTA
Belgium's Defense Minister said last week that he would act to extract payment from Israel for the removal of cluster bomb fragments that the Israel Defense Forces fired into Lebanese territory during the Second Lebanon War.
During a meeting with representatives of Medical Aid for the Third World (MATW), an international medical organization, Defense Minister Andre Flahaut said the weapon was "the resort of cowards and a violation of international law."
The organization's coordinator, Dr. Bert De Belder, told Haaretz that Flahaut was receptive to the idea that Israel should be regarded as a polluter, and be made to pay for the removal of the pollution so far estimated at $13 million
De Belder added he had not seen "a shred of evidence" that Hezbollah also fired cluster bombs into Israel. Human Rights Watch announced last October that it found 113 such instances.
... Ha'aretz
You will not that nearly all my sources are Israeli newspapers. - RightHand, on 08/26/2008, -4/+4Last update - 14:20 12/09/2006
IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html
By Meron Rappaport
FTA
"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.
In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.
The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.
It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.
A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.
International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.
The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.
... Ha'aretz
Want more? Disproportionate overkill, which you will be familiar with? Mine are only words that don't kill women and children! There's is plenty more and I have not even Goggled yet.- yonoz, on 08/26/2008, -1/+2There's plenty of criticism of Israel on the 'net?
SHOCKA!
- yonoz, on 08/26/2008, -1/+2There's plenty of criticism of Israel on the 'net?
- writie, on 08/26/2008, -2/+3"One can only hope Hezbollah will never launch attacks on Israel again"
- FrankHope, on 08/26/2008, -5/+14Let Israel pay for the cleanup. Why does the world always have to pay the price to clean up Israel's messes?
- sn4ke666, on 08/26/2008, -3/+4Let Hezbollah spend its funds on cleaning up its mess and healing the Lebanese people it betrayed and used as pawns instead of spending them on more AK's and suicide vests.
- thepoliticalcat, on 08/27/2008, -0/+5Israel used cluster bombs, Israel should pay for the cleanup. Isn't it enough that they have repeatedly, in defiance of international law, continued to take land and water from Palestinians without compensation? Built a concentration camp in Gaza? Bombed hospitals and civilian dwellings, bulldozed orchards and people? Why is the state of Israel allowed to get away with war crimes?
- n0gnuz, on 08/29/2008, -0/+2"Why does the world always have to pay the price to clean up Israel's messes?"
Cause they have a lobby and we don't.
- ad33lshahid, on 08/26/2008, -6/+10israeli terrorists with another type of collective punishment once again
- sn4ke666, on 08/26/2008, -4/+6Hezbollah and the other militants bring collective punishment on their own people by using them as meat shields.
- ad33lshahid, on 08/26/2008, -4/+5you cant use your cookie cutter meat shields excuse to justify Israel's dropping of cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the conflict when they knew a ceasefire was imminent. Try again, maybe you can say hezbollah planted the cluster bombs there themselves and are trying to frame the israelis
- yonoz, on 08/26/2008, -2/+3Obvious troll with another type of trolling comment once again.
- sn4ke666, on 08/26/2008, -4/+6Hezbollah and the other militants bring collective punishment on their own people by using them as meat shields.
- allowners, on 08/28/2008, -0/+6I believe that is a war crime under international law.
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