The UN humanitarian chief yesterday accused Israel of "shocking" and "completely immoral" behaviour for dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a ceasefire in its war with Hizbullah was in sight.
Jan Egeland told a news briefing that Israel had either made a "terribly wrong decision" or had "started thinking afterwards". The remarks were unusually harsh, even for Mr Egeland, who often ignores an unwritten rule that UN officials should not criticise member states too severely.
"What's shocking and I would say, to me, completely immoral, is that 90 per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland told a news conference.
UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland
The Israeli government also had no immediate comment, and the Israeli army referred to its earlier statement that all the weapons it uses "are legal under international law and their use conforms with international standards".
Cluster bomblets, which have the explosive force to destroy armoured vehicles, are packed into bombs dropped from aircraft or into artillery shells. Between 200 and 600 of the bomblets are typically scattered over an area the size of a football pitch from a single cluster-bomb canister.
An unusual number of cluster bombs used in the war did not detonate on impact, possibly because they were old, Mr Egeland said.
Usually 10 to 15 per cent of the bomblets fail to explode immediately. According to some estimates, up to 70 per cent of the Israeli bomblets failed to explode initially.
Civilians returning to their homes in southern Lebanon are experiencing "massive problems," as a result of these unexploded munitions, Mr Egeland said.
Approximately 250,000 Lebanese, of the one million displaced, cannot move back into their homes, many because of unexploded munitions. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance," Mr Egeland said.
UN and human rights organisations said yesterday that 13 people, including three children, had been killed between the August 14th ceasefire and Tuesday, and 46 people have been wounded.
Human Rights Watch researchers have said that the density of cluster bombs in southern Lebanon was higher than any place they had seen.
"Countries can't keep on ignoring this," said Thomas Nash of the Cluster Munitions Coalition, an umbrella campaign that includes Human Rights Watch, at a meeting yesterday on the issue in Geneva.
"While children and civilians are being killed every day in Lebanon because of cluster munitions that have just been used, governments are sitting here in Geneva."