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A UN mine-clearer checks unexploded bomblets in a fruit farm. (Reuters)
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FRUN, Lebanon — The olive and vegetable fields in
many southern Lebanese villages, the main source of income for
thousands, have become no-go areas after being littered with
unexploded cluster bombs and mines left behind by Israel.
"Agriculture is our livelihood and we can't
even work the fields any more because we risk being blown up,"
Abu Qasim, 37-year resident of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, told Agence
France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, September 7.
Displaying wounds on his right leg and left thigh,
Qasim said he has defused some 2,500 bomblets found in the village and
surrounding fields since a UN-brokered ceasefire took into effect on
August 14.
Many homes and surrounding areas in the village are
sealed off with red tape indicating the danger that lurks within.
The United Nations accused Israel on Wednesday,
August 30, of carpeting southern Lebanon with thousands of unexploded
bombs in the final hours of its month-long war, when the stage was
being set for a ceasefire.
The cluster bombs release small bomblets in midair,
expected to fall to the ground and explode on impact across a wide
area.
They are designed to penetrate thick armor as well
as to kill or maim people within several yards.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on
Israel to provide locations of its cluster-bomb attacks to prevent
deaths of returning Lebanese civilians from unexploded ordnance.
Shelters
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Lebanese brothers pitch a tent near their damaged home in the southern village of Ghandouriyeh. (Reuters)
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Bracing for the fast-approaching winter months,
some the southerners who lost their homes in the Israeli war are
dissatisfied with the relief strategy.
"I don't want any more handouts or medicines,
I just want someone to start rebuilding my home," said a tearful
Saada Mohammed Dirani, 52.
She is living with her 83-year-old mother in a tent
donated by a British Rotary club and pitched against the only wall
left standing in her house.
Dirani has received financial aid from the Lebanese
resistance group Hizbullah to rent a new home after her house was
destroyed in the Israeli blitz but she refuses to leave the village
that has been her life-long home.
"Where do you want me to go with my
mother?" she asks.
"There is no available housing nearby and I
can't just leave my house and my onion fields."
Mohammed Hamdoun, another southerner, agreed.
"The sardines and the tuna are welcome but
what we really need with the bitter winter coming up are prefabricated
homes," he said, referring to his reserved stores of canned
foods.
"People have been waiting for help for nearly
a month and they are going to become like time-bombs if something
concrete doesn't happen soon."
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to
rebuild 15,000 homes demolished by the Israeli offensive and housing
hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians.
Little Life
Rasmiyeh Moukdad has lost her home in the mountain
village of Frun, about 75 kilometers (47 miles) southeast of Beirut.
What only remained is barely a wall left standing
and mounds of rubble, twisted steel and personal belongings strewn
about.
Israeli missiles have punched huge holes in the
walls, and the windows and doors are blown out.
She and her ailing parents, both in their 80s,
spend their days in the only room spared from the shelling. There is
no running water or electricity.
The same picture is repeated through the tiny
village where 95 of the 160 homes have been destroyed and the rest
have been burned out or heavily damaged by the shelling.
Of the 2,000 residents, most of them farmers, the
few who have returned spend their days waiting for resuming their
normal life again.
Most spend their nights with friends or family in
nearby villages less damaged by the war.
Though there is little life in these remote
villages and no clear sign of reconstruction, teams from regional
municipalities can be seen walking about assessing the damage and
spraying the front of each home or a stone with red lettering or a
number identifying the owner.
UN and Red Cross workers also visit to provide
water and medical assistance.
