The manager of the UN's mine removal centre in south Lebanon, Chris Clark, said Israel had failed to provide useful information of its cluster bomb strikes, which could help with the clearance operation.

Last month, the UN's humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in the conflict.

Israel says all its weapons and munitions, as well as their use, comply with international law.

'Threat to life'

Mr Clark said Israel fired up to 6,000 bombs, rockets and artillery a day into Lebanon during the 34-day conflict.

He said more than 40,000 cluster bomblets had been cleared since the fighting ended on 14 August, but many more remained scattered "in bushes, trees, hedges and wire fences".

Mr Clark said information Israel had provided to help with the bomblets' clearance had been "useless".

"We have asked for grid references for [cluster bomb] strikes," he said.

"We have not received them so far."

The UN's refugee agency said the danger of unexploded cluster bombs meant some 200,000 people displaced by the conflict would not be able to return home for up to two years, rather than 12 months as previously forecast.

"This is clearly the biggest threat to civilian life," said Arjun Jain, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Hundreds of bomblets are packed into the cluster bombs, which are fired from the ground or dropped by aircraft.

The bombs detonate in mid-air, dispersing the drinks-can sized bomblets over a wide area. Those which do not explode on impact become like anti-personnel mines.

The use of cluster bombs is not prohibited under international law.

Dr. Ali Mousa, the director of Rafah's hospital, told Reuters a girl, 14, died when a block from the house that Israel bombed twice ricocheted into a neighboring building causing it to collapse.

He said 10 other people were wounded by the blast, most of them women and children who suffered broken bones, bruises and shrapnel wounds.

The Israeli strike came hours after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded an off-duty Israeli soldier in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Israel has stepped up military operations in Gaza, a coastal strip it had withdrawn from last year, after Palestinian militants captured a soldier in a June 25 cross-border raid.

B'Tselem demanded "the government of Israel order a criminal investigation into the bombing, with the intention of prosecuting the persons responsible for ordering and carrying out the attack," it said.

Israel bombed the Gaza power plant on June 28, as it launched a massive military offensive in the impoverished coastal strip three days after militants seized a soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid.

The offensive, and the plant bombing, was said to be aimed at recovering Corporal Gilad Shalit and at stopping Gaza militants from firing rockets into Israel.

"Although the bombing followed the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit and the firing of... rockets at Israeli communities, there was no apparent military basis for the action, and it seems that its intention was to satisfy a desire for revenge," B'Tselem said.

"Even if one adopts the doubtful claim that the attack provided some definite military advantage, it was disproportionate and Israel has other, less harmful alternatives," the group said.

The power plant bombing has had a devastating effect on life in the densely populated territory, with electricity being rationed to a few hours a day during the hot summer months.

The offensive has also cut water supplies to a few hours a day and brought sewage treatment to a halt.

The UN humanitarian aid chief, Jan Egeland, condemned the bombing as clear use of disproportionate force.

The Gaza Strip is also the heartland of Islamist faction Hamas which came to power in January elections and against which Israel has been applying mounting pressure to get it to renounce violence and recognise the Jewish state.

"The court admitted there was not enough evidence to keep him in jail. He will be home in Nablus (in the West Bank) in a matter of hours," Sha'er's lawyer, Osama al-Saadi, was quoted by Haaretz.

But an IDF spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report at the moment.

Al-Sha'er, a top Hamas official on Israel's wanted list, was seized at his house two months ago.

Israel arrested dozens of lawmakers, including three cabinet ministers in June after an Israeli soldier was kidnapped in a cross-border raid from Gaza by the Palestinian militant groups three months ago.

Thirty-one Hamas legislators are still in Israeli custody.

Senior sources in the Liberal-Democrat party expressed revulsion from her comments. Jewish and Israeli sources in Britain described her comments as being anti-Semitic, and pointed out that Tone was removed from her parliamentary job in 2004, after she said she understood the hearts of Palestinian suicide bombers.

The Daily Express newspaper, one of the media outlets to report on the episode, tied Tonge's comments to a confrontation between the party and the Israeli embassy in London, following a decision by Ambassador Zvi Hefetz to boycott the opening of the annual party conference, due to the position of the Liberal Democrats' party leader on the war in Lebanon.

The confrontation took place after Liberal-Democrats leader Menzies Campbell sent a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair calling on him to place an arms embargo on Israel. During the same day Campbell met with Ambassador Hefetz in parliament, and discussed the situation in the Middle East - though he did not tell Hefetz about the letter he sent to Blair.

'Anti-Semitic expression'

When Hefetz learned of the letter, he sent a letter to Campbell in which he tried to explain to him why he saw his request for an arms embargo on Israel as being a one-sided stance. Embassy spokesman in London, Lior Ben Dor, told Ynet that Hefetz did not yet receive a reply to his letter.

At the start of the week, Hefetz sent Campbell another letter in which he informed him that although he was invited to the annual conference of his party, like every year, he cold not take part in the event due to the one-sided stance his party took during the war.

Responding to Tonge's comments, Hefetz told Ynet: "I assume that if these comments were made before the publication of the report on anti-Semitism of the independent parliamentary commission, which found a rise in anti-Semitism in Britain, the comments of the baroness would serve as an example of anti-Semitic expression."

The embassy spokesman stressed that despite the boycott of the Liberal-Democrats conference, "we are interested in continuing the dialogue and relations with the Liberal-Democrat party like with every other party."

Conservative Friends of Israel

The Conservative Friends of Israel is an independent, self-financing and autonomous organization. The CFI aims to foster greater understanding about and sympathy for Israel within the Conservative Party.

Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) is one of the largest political groups in the UK. Over two thirds of the Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) are members and CFI has activists all over the UK. CFI regularly lobbies Conservative MPs, Lords, MEPs and advisors to make the case for Israel. At CFI, we ensure Conservative politicians make Israel 's case in Parliament, in the UK and Europe.

http://www.cfoi.co.uk/about.html

Labour Friends of Israel

LFI seeks to promote a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel. We work with the Government, Parliamentarians, advisers, and activists throughout the Labour movement. LFI also strengthens the bond between the British and Israeli Labour parties, organising meetings in both countries between senior figures, officials and the grassroots.

We are fundamentally sympathetic to Israel's position as a liberal democracy facing constant security dilemmas and existential threats. But we are not uncritical. Positive engagement with all sections of the Israeli political spectrum is important, as is an effective working relationship with Palestinian representatives. We are friends of both an Israel, secure and at peace with her neighbours, and of a viable and democratic Palestine.

http://www.lfi.org.uk

Liberal Democrat friends of Israel

Due to the website being developed by an immature web designer, we could not paste the aims and objectives of LDFI. But we are sure you can read the text under Objectives of LDFI.

http://www.ldfi.org.uk

Even A Blind Person Knows The Existence of The Israel Lobby, but what is stopping you in seeing the existence of the Israel Lobby? Fear of being called An Anti-Semitic? If you think now is worse give it a few years when everything and anything on the issue of Israel & Zionism will be anti-Semitic.

Netanyahu is facing a leadership challenge in the Likud from former foreign minister Silvan Shalom, who invited hundreds of Likud activists to a post-Rosh Hashana toast he is hosting on Monday night in a large Ramat Gan wedding hall. Another prospective Likud leadership candidate, former IDF chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon, denied that he intends to enter politics in an interview with Channel 10 broadcast on Sunday night.

A spokesman for Mofaz said the meeting with Netanyahu took place a month ago at the home of attorney Yitzhak Molho, who was Netanyahu's personal attorney and an envoy to former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat when he was prime minister. But he said the two merely exchanged pleasantries and did not talk politics.

Netanyahu's spokesman Ophir Akunis added that there was a social meeting between the two a month ago, but said there was no attempt to bring Mofaz or 10 MKs from Kadima over to the Likud. The Likud leader said in closed conversations on Thursday that the Kadima Party would self-destruct before the next election but he would take no action to bring it about because getting caught interfering inside Kadima would harm him politically.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said they were aware of the meeting between Netanyahu and Mofaz and that they were "really not concerned" about it. Olmert bashed Mofaz in weekend interviews with the Hebrew press, accusing him of lying about warning Olmert of the ramifications of his decisions in the Lebanon war.

The prime minister also blamed Mofaz for many of the casualties in the war. Mofaz's spokesman declined to respond to the allegations.