Six ambulance workers were wounded and three generations of the Fawaz family, being transported to hospital from Tibnin with what were originally minor injuries, were left fighting for their lives. Two ambulances were entirely destroyed, their roofs pierced by missiles.

The Lebanese Red Cross, whose ambulance service for south Lebanon is run entirely by volunteers, immediately announced it would cease all rescue missions unless Israel guaranteed their safety through the United Nations or the International Red Cross.

For the villages below the Litani river, the ambulances were their last link to the outside world. Yesterday, that too was gone, leaving the 100,000 people of Tyre district with no way of reaching hospital other than to take to the roads themselves, under the roar of Israeli war planes.

The fateful call to the Red Cross operations room came through at about 10pm - well after dark, a time when almost no Lebanese now dare venture out.

At the Red Cross office in Tyre, three volunteer medics dressed in their orange overalls, and got into their ambulance. The plan was to drive halfway, meet the local ambulance, and transfer the three patients to their vehicle to return to Tyre.

By Nader Joudi's reckoning, the ambulances had been stopped for barely two minutes. Two patients had been loaded: Ahmed Mustafa Fawaz, who had been hit by shrapnel in the stomach, and his son, Mohammed, 14. The volunteer attendant was just easing Jamila Fawaz, 80, inside and setting up a drip when the missile struck. He managed to get the old woman and the child outside, but there was no way to reach Mr Fawaz. "It was horrible," Mr Joudi said. "He was screaming, and we couldn't do anything."

One of the members of the three-man crew from Tibnin radioed for help when another missile plunged through the roof. Ambulance crew and patients retreated to the cellar of a nearby building, then waited to be rescued, trying as best as they could to help the injured. "Each of us treated ourselves. There was no light," said Kassem Shaalan, a medic from Tyre.

By the time patients and ambulance crew reached Tyre, Mr Fawaz was unconscious after losing one leg, and suffering severe fractures to the other. His son had lost part of a foot, and his mother's body was riddled with shrapnel. Mr Joudi had shrapnel wounds in his left arm, and Mr Shaalan cuts to the face and leg.

He was adamant that the ambulances, with their Red Cross insignia on the roof, were clearly visible from the air. "I don't think there can be a mistake in two bombings of two ambulances," he said.

Although the air strike marked the first time ambulances have been hit by Israel in this war, for Mr Shaalan and the other Red Cross volunteers it was only a matter of time. After two weeks of strikes designed to choke off possible supply lines to Hizbullah guerrillas, travel to many villages was just too dangerous. Coastal villages even within a few kilometers of Tyre are cut off. In some, corpses remain trapped in the rubble for days.

But nothing is more perilous than travelling by night, and no more so than just before midnight that Sunday when another Red Cross crew set off from Tyre to pick up their injured colleagues.

"I was trembling," said Ali Deeb, one of the volunteers on the mission. "It was too dangerous, and helicopters buzzing, and all through this, I am thinking one thing: the ambulance that left half an hour before you has already been injured, and you could be next." Later yesterday afternoon, two missiles landed in the building across the road from the Red Cross office.

The toll

Lebanese

Yesterday

Civilian deaths 8

Hizbullah deaths 0

Since outbreak

Military deaths 66

Civilian deaths 377

Wounded 1,550+

Israeli

Yesterday

Civilian deaths 0

Military deaths 4

Since outbreak

Military deaths 24

Civilian deaths 17

Wounded 360+

It was not immediate clear if the five others killed were related. One woman was also wounded, according to the officials.

It was not immediately clear why the Israeli planes had targeted the house.

The attack, on the 14th day of fighting since eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two captured by Hezbollah fighters, came a day after Israeli troops battled their way to a key Hezbollah stronghold in south Lebanon, seizing a hilltop in heavy fighting and capturing two guerrillas, according to the Israeli army.

"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used in populated areas."

According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.

Close-up of a M483A1 DPICM artillery-delivered cluster munition present in the arsenal of an IDF unit in northern Israel. (Human Rights Watch)

The cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family was using as a shelter, wounding 12 persons, including seven children. Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from injuries caused by the cluster munitions. Five of his children were wounded: Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; 'Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and 'Ola, 1. His wife Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law 'Ola Musa, 80, were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his wife Fatima, 40; and their children 'Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.


Human Rights Watch researchers photographed artillery-delivered cluster munitions among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a research visit on July 23. The photographs show M483A1 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, which are U.S.-produced and -supplied, artillery-delivered cluster munitions. The photographs contain the distinctive marks of such cluster munitions, including a diamond-shaped stamp, and a shape that is longer than ordinary artillery, according to a retired IDF commander who asked not to be identified.

The M483A1 artillery shells deliver 88 cluster submunitions per shell, and have an unacceptably high failure rate (dud rate) of 14 percent, leaving behind a serious unexploded ordnance problem that will further endanger civilians. The commander said that the IDF's operations manual warns soldiers that the use of such cluster munitions creates dangerous minefields due to the high dud rate.

Lebanese security forces, who to date have not engaged in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, also accused Israel of using cluster munitions in its attacks on Blida and other Lebanese border villages. These sources also indicated they have evidence that Israel used cluster munitions earlier this year during fighting with Hezbollah around the contested Shebaa Farms area. Human Rights Watch is continuing to investigate these additional allegations.


Human Rights Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law. The wide dispersal pattern of their submunitions makes it very difficult to avoid civilian casualties if civilians are in the area. Moreover, because of their high failure rate, cluster munitions leave large numbers of hazardous, explosive duds that injure and kill civilians even after the attack is over. Human Rights Watch believes that cluster munitions should never be used, even away from civilians, unless their dud rate is less than 1 percent.

Human Rights Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. military's use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war, the 2001-2002 Afghanistan war, and the 2003 Iraq war. Human Rights Watch research established that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition's conduct of major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians. Roughly a quarter of the 500 civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing in the 1999 Yugoslavia war were also due to cluster munitions.


"Our research in Iraq and Kosovo shows that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life," Roth said. "Israel must stop using cluster bombs in Lebanon at once."

Human Rights Watch called upon the Israel Defense Forces to immediately cease the use of indiscriminate weapons like cluster munitions in Lebanon.

Background

Israel used cluster munitions in Lebanon in 1978 and in the 1980s. At that time, the United States placed restrictions on their use and then a moratorium on the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel out of concern for civilian casualties. Those weapons used more than two decades ago continue to affect Lebanon.

Israel has in its arsenal cluster munitions delivered by aircraft, artillery and rockets. Israel is a major producer and exporter of cluster munitions, primarily artillery projectiles and rockets containing M85 DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) submunitions. Israeli Military Industries, an Israeli government-owned weapons manufacturer, has reportedly produced more than 60 million M85 DPICM submunitions. Israel also produces at least six different types of air-dropped cluster bombs, and has imported from the United States M26 rockets for its Multiple Launch Rocket Systems

There is growing international momentum to stop the use of cluster munitions. Belgium became the first country to ban cluster munitions in February 2006, and Norway announced a moratorium on the weapon in June 2006. Cluster munitions are increasingly the focus of discussion at the meetings of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, with ever more states calling for a new international instrument dealing with cluster munitions.

Human Rights Watch is a founding member, and a steering committee member, of the Cluster Munition Coalition.

Related Links

BY TOPIC: Israel attacks Lebanon (12 July 2006-)

Human Rights Watch

Cluster Munition Coalition

The Israeli army said it was aiming at Hamas militants behind the rocket attacks and it expressed regret at any civilian deaths.

Israeli officials had asked Palestinian officials to urge town residents to stay inside during the shelling.

One shell went off near an apartment building, while another exploded in an open space between two buildings. Some shattered windows, while others cracked walls.

Ahmed Obeid, 40, said that he was eating lunch with his wife and two children when the shelling began, causing damage to their apartment.

"If we had not moved to the hall, we would have been killed," he said.

Doctors said one of the dead was a 14-year-old boy.

Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28 after Palestinian militants killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third in an attack on a military outpost. The offensive killed more than 100 Palestinians, most of them armed men.

Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon on July 12 after Hezbollah militants killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two others in a raid on Israel.

Palestinians to protest Rice's Mideast visit

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Beirut on Monday as part of a diplomatic mission to the Middle East. She is expected to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank to discuss Palestinian issues.

Palestinians are getting ready to protest her visit by planning a general strike and "a day of rage" in Gaza City on Tuesday.

Omar Assaf, a member of a political action committee that organizes activities by Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank, said stores in the Gaza Strip are being asked to close their doors that day.

"She is responsible for the killing of children in Lebanon and Gaza. She, her administration, and her policies are not welcome here," he said.

But last night he had harsh words for Hizbullah as well, rebuking the Shi'ite group for cravenly using civilians as human shields. "Hizbullah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," Mr Egeland said.

A UN report accompanying the appeal highlighted the scale of the devastation during 12 days of warfare, saying:

- The ongoing [Israeli] military operation has caused enormous damage to residential areas and key civilian infrastructure such as power plants, seaports and fuel depots.

- Hundreds of bridges and virtually all road networks have been systematically destroyed, leaving entire communities in the south inaccessible.

- Skyrocketing prices for basic goods (eg: the price of sugar has risen by 600% and cooking gas by 400%) further deplete the coping mechanisms of the Lebanese.

- The longer the hostilities last, the more dramatic the humanitarian situation will become. Food, water, health, fuel, and other basic needs will increase; so will the number of internally displaced persons.

- Reports indicate that there is a lack of essential goods, with needs particularly acute in villages along the Israeli-Lebanese border, which have been isolated by the conflict. There are reports that food supplies in some villages have been exhausted.

- The widespread destruction of public infrastructure ... as well as the targeting of commercial trucks, has seriously hampered relief operations.

- As many as 800 persons live in a school designed for 200 to 300 children. School water systems cannot cope with the extent of needs. Neither can sanitary facilities ... a resurgence of diarrhoea cases has been noted in some centres.

In addition to this list, Mr Egeland said there was one school housing 1,000 people which had only six toilets. He warned that fuel was becoming critical in many areas and power failure would affect water supplies and sewage, bringing increased health risks. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, he said: "Only cessation of hostilities can really make it safe for us [to deliver aid]." Failing that, the UN was hoping to arrange a "notification scheme" which would allow safe passage for humanitarian goods.

The UN already had 100 trucks contracted or on their way to deliver aid within Lebanon, Mr Egeland said. The first convoy could head south from Beirut to Sidon and Tyre as early as tomorrow, and the UN was working on details with the Israeli military, he said.

The UN is asking Israel for safe passage through three Lebanese ports. Initially, it hopes to have two ships ferrying supplies into Beirut from Cyprus, with the ports of Tripoli, in the north, and Tyre, in the south, to be added later.

It has also asked Israel to grant safe passage for convoys from Syria. Mr Egeland said the plan was to set up a staging area on the border to receive aid and prioritise it for distribution. "We are hopeful that in the course of this week you will see a real difference on the ground. By next week we will have a major operation really started," he said.

The White House said yesterday that George Bush had ordered helicopters and ships to Lebanon to give humanitarian aid. "Humanitarian supplies will start arriving in Lebanon tomorrow by helicopter and by ship," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "We are working with Israel and Lebanon to open up humanitarian corridors." He described the move as "a significant US commitment".

Mr Bush still opposed the idea of an immediate ceasefire, he added, saying there was no reason to believe it would stop violence in the Middle East; instead the world should confront Hizbullah and its practice of using the Lebanese people as "human shields".

"I'm waiting until he gets better. It will hurt him so much," his sister Kawsar, 24, warned the Star before entering his room at the Beirut Government University Hospital.

There are many heartbreaking stories in a conflict that has killed at least 384 Lebanese, all but 30 of them civilians, and 40 Israelis, 23 of them soldiers.

But knowing a devastating secret about a survivor's life is all the more wrenching, especially when the person is so happy to be alive.

"When I get out of here, I'm going back to my studies to become a doctor," said Zakaria, speaking in French.

And his eyes light up again.

About a week ago, the Alamiddine family fled their village and took refuge in a basement used as a bomb shelter in the city of Tyre.

Zakaria was calling out to his mother when the bomb slammed into the shelter.

All he remembers is seeing the wall he was looking at explode.

Next thing he knew he woke up in hospital, his face badly burned and a deep wound in his thigh caused by shrapnel.

His mother, Mariam Atwi, a school principal, is in the burn unit of another hospital. She too is unaware that her husband Mohammed, a chemistry teacher, and her son Ali, a talented pianist, were killed in the bombings.

"I will never forgive those who did this to my father and little brother, who was really an angel," said Kawsar, who was in Beirut at the time of the attack, finishing her studies as a pediatrician.

"They're not fighting Hezbollah. They're fighting the population," she added.

Said Zakaria: "Tell the people of Canada that they (Israel) can destroy Lebanon, but they can't destroy its people."

There are 45 people wounded from the conflict at this Beirut hospital, and many of their stories bear witness to the growing criticism of Israel's bombing campaign as excessive and heedless of civilian casualties.

In one room, Radya Shaito, 54, was lying on a bed, her face burned and body covered in scars. She and 17 other members of her family were crammed into their white van Sunday and fleeing south Lebanon when an Israeli missile struck them just outside of Tyre.

Two members of the family died.

"They must have known the van was full of people. It's a crime, a crime. We are civilians; we are not fighting Israel," Shaito said.

Large areas of predominantly Shia Muslim southern Beirut have been destroyed by Israeli raids. On Wednesday Israeli aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on the site of an alleged Hezbollah bunker in the south of the capital.

Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator, on Sunday accused Israel of violating humanitarian law as he toured the destroyed suburbs of south Beirut.

"This is destruction of block after block of mainly residential areas. I would say it seems to be an excessive use of force in an area with so many citizens," he said.

Israel's offensive in Lebanon has claimed at least 365 lives, mostly civilians.

Nasrallah emerged unscathed both times and said other top guerrillas were also unhurt. Some Israeli military experts blamed the missions' apparent failure on the absence of air force ordnance capable of cracking Hizbollah command bunkers.

Israel asked the United States in 2004 to sell it bunker busters. Pentagon approval for the sale of 100 GBU-28 bombs, capable of penetrating some 20 feet (7 metres) of concrete, came through last year but Israel's Defence Ministry, amid steep budget cuts, decided against making the purchase.

Citing U.S. officials, the New York Times reported on Saturday that the Bush administration was rushing a delivery of satellite- and laser-guided bombs to Israel in response to an Israeli request connected to the Lebanon offensive.

The report did not give details on the munitions in question but said they were part of a sale the Pentagon approved in 2005.

A crowd gathered around him, nodded their heads iagreement. "The kids will pick up stones, and we will pick up Kalashnikovs," said a man, who refused to give his name.

The first 12 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, or the Party of God, has largely been a long-range exchange of fire, with Hezbollah lobbing hundreds of deadly rockets at Israeli cities and Israel responding with heavy artillery barrages and waves of air strikes. But with Israeli troops crossing into south Lebanon over the weekend and seizing the village of Marun al-Ras, the fight is about to get a lot more personal.

Military experts say that Hezbollah, which has about 5,000 full-time fighters, has another 10,000 reservists. Mr. Bahjat says he is one of them, and that he is ready to fight when the time comes.

"Hezbollah so far hasn't asked us for help, but we're ready the second they do. We all have hidden weapons," he said without elaborating.

Despite a growing humanitarian crisis -- Sidon's normal population of 100,000 has been swelled by 35,000 refugees from hard-hit villages farther south -- Hezbollah and its supporters say they have no intention of surrendering to Israel's demands that the group disarm and hand back two soldiers it kidnapped this month.

Instead, the militia says the battle is going well. The group acknowledged yesterday that the Israeli army was occupying Marun al-Ras, but tried to spin the loss as a victory.

"When the enemy tried to present the occupation of Marun al-Ras as a great military achievement, it was fooling its people and the world because an army which is fighting with elite troops and tanks, backed by air forces, could not enter a village on the border without days of fighting and huge losses," read a statement released yesterday by Hezbollah. Five Israeli soldiers died during several days of fierce clashes in the village, while Hezbollah says it lost three fighters.

But while the fighters bragged yesterday of their readiness for more bloodshed, south Lebanon's morgues and emergency wards continued to overflow with the civilian casualties of what so far has been a lopsided war.

In Sidon's Labib Medical Centre, Ikhlas Hamzeh and her seven-year-old son, Jaber, lay in neighbouring beds recovering after a missile exploded near their car as they tried to flee their town of Bint Jbeil.

The mother had a broken right leg, while Jaber had two broken legs and gauze bandages covering much of his face. In obvious pain, the boy stared at the ceiling, trying not to cry in front of strangers.

"Tell Israel and tell [Hezbollah] -- tell both sides -- that children are getting hurt, that children are dying," Ms. Hamzeh said.

Rice, in Israel after making a surprise visit to bomb-scarred Beirut, said it was "time for a new Middle East" and underlined Washington's stance that an immediate ceasefire would only put off a long-term solution to the conflict.

"A durable solution will be one that strengthens the forces of peace and democracy in the region," she said. "The people of this region, Israelis, Lebanese, and the Palestinians have lived too long in fear, and in terror, and in violence."

In Lebanon Monday, Rice said she was "deeply concerned" about the plight of civilians and the government announced a 30 million dollar aid package, with US forces due to begin airlifting supplies Tuesday.

She also met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who appealed for a ceasefire to end Israel's similarly aggressive offensive on the Gaza Strip, where 114 people have been killed in an operation to free a captured soldier and halt rocket attacks.

"Rice, Rice, you are a crow, what misery you bring with you," a crowd of about 2,000 protestors chanted before her arrival in Ramallah.

On a visit to the Gaza Strip's main power plant which was bombed by Israel, leaving many of the area's 1.4 million residents without power, UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland said it was a "clear" example of excessive force.

The United States has been unwavering in its support for Israel's war on Hezbollah and Hamas militants -- even sending in more weapons -- despite the heavy human cost of the conflict.

Hundreds of thousands in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes, creating what the United Nations warns is a humanitarian catastrophe. Human Rights Watch accused Israel Monday of using artillery-fired cluster bombs in Lebanon and demanded the Jewish state immediately cease the practice.

Rice held talks with Lebanese leaders including Prime Minister Fuad Siniora on her trip to Beirut, where she reportedly outlined plans for a ceasefire that would involve creating an internationally-patrolled buffer zone in southern Lebanon for 60 to 90 days and a Hezbollah withdrawal from the border area.

Washington is under pressure from European and Arab allies to try to bring an end to the crisis amid charges it was dragging its feet to allow Israel time to attempt to wipe out the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which set off the conflict after seizing two soldiers on July 12.

But Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who is acting as an intermediary for Hezbollah, rejected Rice's reported plan and said there must first be a ceasefire and a prisoner swap.

Israel is struggling to knock out Hezbollah despite its vastly superior military might and has now suggested it would accept some form of international force in southern Lebanon, currently in the grip of the Shiite militia.

A 15-year-old Arab Israeli girl was killed after a rocket hit her house in a village in northern Israel as more than a dozen rockets fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon pummelled the northern port of Haifa, wounding at least five people.

Israeli forces were also beseiging the border town of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold, amid fierce gunbattles as troops in tanks and bulldozers pushed even deeper into Lebanon.

"Beit Jbeil is in our hands," General Alon Friedman, one of Israel's top commanders for its northern region, told army radio. It was not confirmed if troops were actually inside the town.

Israel has massed troops on the border and warned residents of southern Lebanon to flee but says it has no plans for an all-out invasion -- for now.

But a senior army officer said the military would limit its incursions to southern Lebanon in its bid to annihilate Hezbollah.

Two soldiers were killed in fighting Monday, bringing to 41 -- 24 servicemen and 17 civilians -- the toll of Israelis killed since the crisis erupted.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington's closest ally, called the conflict a "catastrophe" that was damaging fledgling democracy in Lebanon, a country that had gradually been rebuilding since the 1975-90 civil war and the end of Syria's long military and political dominance last year.

He said he hoped a plan would be announced in the next few days to bring about an end to the worst cross-border conflict since Israel invaded its northern neighbour in 1982.

The offensive has left Lebanon virtually cut off from the world, made hundreds of thousands of people refugees in their own country and destroyed billions of dollars of infrastructure.

Siniora, who has issued several desperate appeals for a ceasefire, accused Israel of trying to set his country back 50 years in his meeting with Rice.

Israel launched a public relations offensive led by its best-known elder statesman Shimon Peres to tell the world why it was not yet silencing its guns.

"The free world is facing a threat, the goal of Hezbollah is to set the world aflame and we will not let them succeed," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah remained defiant, vowing that deeper incursions would not stop the rocket fire, and ruling out any efforts for a negotiated settlement unless it involved a prisoner swap.

Egeland, issuing an urgent appeal for 150 million dollars for 800,000 people made homeless by Israel's onslaught, criticised both Israel and Hezbollah for attacking civilians.

He also branded the Shiite militants "cowards" for boasting that Lebanese civilians rather than their fighters were bearing the brunt of the Israeli bombardments.

Southeast Asian nations called for an immediate ceasefire and condemned Israel's "excessive" military operations, saying the situation threatened international peace and security.

As the bombardments continued, foreign governments have laid on flotillas of ships to evacuate stranded nationals, mainly to the nearby resort island of Cyprus which has been battling to find temporary accommodation and flights for the estimated 70,000 evacuees at peak summer holiday season.