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100,000 Unexploded Bombs in Lebanon The U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland revealed that of the estimated 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon almost all of them were fired in the last few days of the fighting when the terms of the ceasefire had already been set. The Guardian (UK) reports Egleand said, "What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral is that ninety per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said. It was known that in the last days of the war the Israeli army was engaged in a desperate attempt to have some "victory" and rushed troops here and there in an attempt to have a photo shoot near the Litani River. What was not known until now was this disgusting attempt to make South Lebanon unlivable by sowing the ground with a massive number of bomblets. Cluster bombs come in all sizes, some the size of of bunch of keys. Kids are constantly trying to kick them or pick them up with the result in the loss an arm or leg or even death. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance," said Egeland. The UN official based his esimate on the reports of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre which has examined 85% of Lebanon. The casualty figures as of 29 August from unexploded ordnance rose to 59 people, including 13 killed and 46 injured according to Lebanese government reports. "We have heard the allegations that these munitions were used, and we are seeking more information," a US State Department spokesman said according to the New York Times. The paper reported that Washington had begun an investigation to determine if cluster bombs -- which scatter bomblets over a wide area -- had been responsible for civilian casualties. The US government is following up on information provided from UN personnel and employees of NGOs, who have found unexploded US ordnance in built up areas in Lebanon. [Der Spiegel, August 25] The Zionist Ultras have been circling the wagons on this issue, not giving an inch. Responding to a report by Human Rights Watch charging Israel with war crimes in its conduct of the war in Lebanon that was written by its director Kenneth Roth, Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel has called Roth "loathsome." An editorial in the New York Sun accused Roth of "de-legitimization of Judaism" because his group condemned Israel's strategy as "an eye for an eye." Rabbi Aryeh Spero in Human Events Online referred to Roth as a "human rights impostor," and likened him to "Nazis and Communists." On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post published an op-ed by NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg titled "Ken Roth's Blood Libel." The fact that Kenneth Roth is Jewish and his father fled Nazi Germany makes no difference to the Ultras. [Kathleen Peratis Washington Post August 30] If you are do not suppport Israel 110% you are a Jew-hater, a renegade self-hater, and a holocaust denier. Get it? In a very competitive field Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League took the prize for the comment showing the most utter stupidly. In attacking Human Rights Watch he said if Hizbollah was not made to pay an "overwheling price" for rocket attacks "the Holocaust would be in the works". Hear George Rishmawi
speak about the current situation in Palestine July 15, 2006. Click here.
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