Sat, 2006-09-30 13:00
Salime Yassine (AFP)
The Daily Star | (hat tip)
NABATIYEH: From a hospital bed, 14-year-old Hassan tells how half his foot was blasted away by one of the million bomblets that Israel rained down on South Lebanon during the last days and final hours of its latest war against the country. “I ran across a small object hidden in the vegetation,” the teenager says from his bed in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, as he struggles to come to terms with how dramatically his life has been changed.
But it could have been far worse for Hassan.
A 12-year-old child was killed and three others were wounded Wednesday when they triggered a bomblet while playing in a field in the Marjeyoun area, bringing to 15 the number of civilians killed by Israeli cluster bombs since the cessation of hostilities on August 14.
The accidental explosions of the bomblets, some as small as a flashlight battery, have also maimed about 90 civilians, according to a count based on United Nations figures.
The Lebanese Army says that there are “possibly around one million” unexploded bomblets scattered over South Lebanon, most of which were dropped in the last days of the conflict.
The UN children’s fund (UNICEF) says one third of the casualties caused by cluster bombs since the end of the July-August war have been children, who often mistake the lethal devices for toys.
“This is a major problem,” says Soha Bustani of UNICEF in Beirut, adding that the aim is to expand a public-awareness campaign “to reach every single child in every single family.”
Dr. Ali Hajj Ali, director of the hospital in Nabatiyeh, has a grim warning: “The artificial limb technicians are going to have their work cut out for them in the weeks and months to come.”
Since the UN-brokered truce, his hospital has admitted 24 people maimed by bomblets. Four people in the area have died, including two children from the Hattab family in a nearby village.
“Hadi and Mussa were playing in a field outside when we heard a dull thud. When we got there, the boys were spread out on the ground, lifeless,” says their mother Sanaa, clutching a picture of 11-year-old Hadi to her breast.
Other hospitals in the region, especially around the port town of Tyre, have reported similar casualty figures.
The cluster bombs used by Israel contain hundreds of small but lethal bomblets, which are dispersed over a large area. Those that do not explode on impact turn into lethal anti-personnel mines.
In August, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said it was “completely immoral … that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict” when it was clear a UN resolution was about to end it.
“It is an outrage that we have … bombs among where children, women, shopkeepers and farmers are now going to tread,” he said.
Ibrahim Naim, who runs a laboratory named Al-Abbas where artificial limbs are fitted, says his center has received two to three new patients a day since the end of the conflict that cost more than 1,200 people their lives in Lebanon alone.
Artificial limbs, especially legs, are lined up against a wall at the laboratory.
The center is run by a benevolent foundation funded by Hizbullah, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 prompted the Jewish state to unleash its military might on Lebanon (in the past, similar acts on the part of Hizbullah have not elicited such brutal responses from Israel).
Another Hizbullah association has set up a rehabilitation center for the disabled and their families.
Called Al-Fardous (meaning “paradise”), it cost $1.6 billion to build and is located in Dweir, near Nabatiyeh.
It has 110 chalets. The locally cut-stone buildings with red-tiled roofs make it look like a holiday village.
Nidal Berjawi, a former Hizbullah fighter who lost a leg in action against Israel, now runs the center.
“We will have a lot of people coming here soon,” he predicts.