South Lebanon: Cluster Bomb Removal

clipped from www.youtube.com Last year's Israeli-Lebanese conflict may be over but civilians still face the danger of indiscriminatory attack - from cluster munitions scattered across Lebanon. Since February 2007, the FSD has been working to clear cluster bombs in a project funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Office "ECHO". The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) estimate that over 1 million unexploded cluster munitions litter approximately 34 million square metres of land.

I can't help asking, which swine invented such infernal stuff, and which ones spread it in populated areas where children should be able to play around unworriedly?
Is there really anybody who would dim-wittedly answer, "terrorism has to be fought by terrorism"? (Sorry for using the word "swine"; but I wanted to avoid a real dirty word.)

FISK: Marwahin, 15July'06: The anatomy of a massacre

clipped from news.independent.co.uk Twenty-three of them were to die within the next 15 minutes. The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Lebanon as it is already forgotten abroad. War crimes are easy to talk about when they have been committed in Rwanda or Bosnia; less so in Lebanon, especially when the Israelis are involved. But all the evidence suggests that what happened on this blissfully lovely coastline two and a half months ago was a crime against humanity, one that is impossible to justify on any military grounds since the dead and wounded were fleeing their homes on the express orders of the Israelis themselves. While no friends of Israel, the Sunni community in Lebanon - especially the few thousand Sunnis of Marwahin who are so close to the frontier that they can see the red roofs of the nearest Jewish settlement - are no threat to Israel.

Marwahin: Lest we forget the innocent children

Human Rights Watch states that "war crimes" include "making the civilian population or individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of attack".

clipped from news.independent.co.uk UNIFIL, which turned the refugees of Marwahin away on 15 July, stated that when they were removing the children's bodies, their soldiers came under fire. Human Rights Watch is still investigating the killings of civilians at Marwahin and other locations and wrote of them before the war ended. "The Israeli military," it said in its initial report, "did not follow its orders [to civilians] to evacuate with the creation of safe passage routes, and on a daily basis Israeli warplanes and helicopters struck civilians in cars who were trying to flee, many with white flags out the windows, a widely accepted sign of civilian status ... On some days, Israeli war planes hit dozens of civilian cars, showing a clear pattern of failing to distinguish between civilian and military objects." International law makes it clear that it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians and that to do so is a war crime. six of the children were between the ages of one and 10.