fta
About 300 civilians have since been killed or maimed by cluster bombs, according to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre, with children -- who mistake the bomblets for toys -- accounting for most of the victims. In August 2006, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1701 calling for the full cessation of hostilities between Israel and the Shiite militant group and placed south Lebanon under the mandate of UNIFIL. Siniora's statement added:

"This initiative is the start of the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which Israel has delayed executing."

The war that summer destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and killed ove[b]...

fta
About 300 civilians have since been killed or maimed by cluster bombs, according to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre, with children -- who mistake the bomblets for toys -- accounting for most of the victims. In August 2006, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1701 calling for the full cessation of hostilities between Israel and the Shiite militant group and placed south Lebanon under the mandate of UNIFIL. Siniora's statement added:

"This initiative is the start of the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which Israel has delayed executing."

The war that summer destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and killed over 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and over 150 Israelis, mainly soldiers.

Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single device. The bomblets often do not explode on impact, but can do so later at the slightest touch, making them deadly as anti-personnel landmines.
... France24

Robert Fisk
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.

And these minefields, in some cases, had been laid over old Palestinian minefields. And some of these minefields – and here the 20th century's most titanic war threatens us yet again – had been inadvertently placed over carpets of mines dug into Lebano...

Robert Fisk
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.

And these minefields, in some cases, had been laid over old Palestinian minefields. And some of these minefields – and here the 20th century's most titanic war threatens us yet again – had been inadvertently placed over carpets of mines dug into Lebanon's red earth by French Vichy forces in 1941, as they awaited British and Free French invasion from Palestine.

As usual, the WW2 turns out to be the foundation for so many of the Middle East's present-day horrors. In Tripoli, they publish a "White Book" on Libya's legacy from the 1939-45 war, the tens of thousands of mines buried in the sands around Tobruk and Benghazi by the Italians and Germans, the British and the Australians and New Zealanders and South Africans.

"The Italians lay mines," says the caption beneath a photograph of Berti's engineers placing landmines in the desert. "The British lay more mines. The Germans lay more and more mines. Then they leave but the mines are still there!"

Twenty years after the war – when at least 800 Libyan farmers and family members had already been blown up by mines – an Italian journalist was describing the continuing carnage during mine-clearance.

"These mines are so sensitive that a light footstep is enough to make them jump into the air like a grasshopper – all we found of the two men were a few rags of flesh and clothing."

[b][url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-gardens-of-the-devil-still-sowing-death-790011.html]The gardens of the devil, still sowing death