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Israel Asks US to ‘Quickly’ Send More Cluster Bombs
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 12 August 2006 — Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed up its delivery of short-range anti-personnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, despite reports by the Human Rights Watch that Israel is using cluster bombs “in populated areas of Lebanon,” which it said “may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law.”

Critics say cluster bombs leave behind a large number of unexploded bomblets, which often kill long after they are fired.

“Our research in Iraq and Kosovo shows that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based HRW.

Last Sunday, Israel ambassador Daniel Ayalon denied the charges, telling reporters: “No, we are not [using cluster bombs]. We are not using anything which is not approved by the UN Conventions and Charters.”

But, according to the New York Times, Israeli officials have admitted to using cluster bombs during the current conflict.

On July 24, HRW reported that Israel “has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon.

Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. HRW researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.”

The group identified the munitions as “M483A1 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, which are US-produced and supplied, artillery-delivered cluster munitions.” “What makes those munitions particularly lethal is that they consist of a container that breaks open in mid-air and disperses smaller sub-munitions. Those weapons aredesigned to explode on impact, right before and immediately after impact, saturating an area with flying shards of steel. These sub-munitions generally have a higher explosive charge than anti-personnel land mines,” Cesar Chelala — an international public health consultant based in Washington, recently told reporters.

This is not the first time that Israel has been involved in a cluster bomb controversy. After evidence was presented that Israel had used cluster bombs against civilian areas during the 1982 Israel invasion in Lebanon, the Reagan Administration suspended delivery of the weapons to Israel.

According to yesterday’s New York Times: “Israel was found to have violated a 1976 agreement with the United States in which it had agreed only to use cluster munitions against Arab armies and against clearly defined military targets. The moratorium of selling Israel cluster weapons was later lifted by the Reagan Administration.”

Yesterday’s NYT’s quoted unnamed sources at the US State Department who said some officials there were now seeking to delay approval of the “short-range anti-personnel rockets armed with cluster munitions” due to the “likelihood” that it would cause civilian casualties.

The US had previously approved the sale of the M-26’s rockets, but the weapons had not yet been delivered when the war on Lebanon began.

The officials told NYT they believed Israel would be given the weapons, but would be told to “be careful.”

Despite the extensive media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East, almost no US media outlets were reporting on HRW’s findings.

In a July 27 article, The Los Angeles Times concluded that the “Israeli army said it was checking into the group’s allegations, but added that the weapons were legal under international standards.”

On July 27, the New York Times reported that an Israeli general “acknowledged that Israel had used cluster munitions in the conflict.” The Times described the alleged use of such weapons as “another matter that has drawn criticism.”

Much of the media’s focus has been on the affect of Hezbollah’s weapons: On July 19, for example, the Times reported that US and Israeli officials said Hezbollah had altered some of their rockets by “attaching cluster bombs as warheads, or filling an explosive shell with ball bearings that have devastating effect.”

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer recently contrasted the ball-bearing packed Katyushas that “are meant to kill and maim” with Israel’s “precision-guided munitions” as evidence that “Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.”

Weapons loaded with ball bearings would seem designed to be anti-personnel weapons, and their use has been condemned by human rights organizations because of their wide and imprecise blast range said HRW. But cluster bombs, which likewise have a wide and imprecise blast range, pose an even deadlier threat to civilians, as they can spread hundreds of “bomblets” that become “de facto antipersonnel landmines.” Amnesty International called the use of cluster bombs by the US in civilian areas of Iraq “a grave violation of international humanitarian law.”

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&a...77709&d=12&m=8&y=2006

Reluctant Hero · Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject: