Casualties of War

Suffer the little children:

Like a small black football, it lies in the dirt not far from Haitham Daaboul's front door in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.

It looks innocuous, but a careless kick from a passing child would detonate this cluster bomb, one of thousands of unexploded devices Israel scattered over the towns, villages and hillsides of south Lebanon during its 34-day war with Hizbollah fighters.

The bomblets can maim or kill. In war time, they might hit guerrillas firing rockets. Now with a shaky truce in force, they lie where they fell, creating random minefields over wide areas.

"We can't let the children go outside. There are many cluster bombs in the streets," said Daaboul's wife Nadia.

These cluster bombs are usually attached to rockets supplied by the U.S. to Israel. Use of cluster bombs in civilian areas is illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

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