Flooding South Lebanon - Human Rights Watch

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place.” 237 Assessing the monetary economic impact is difficult, given the numerous factors that go into this calculation. Farmers, however, will certainly feel the effects of the war for a long time. As already described, some farmers decided that the hardship of losing the 2006 crop outweighed the danger of working amidst unexploded submunitions. The head of municipality for Yohmor, where 60 percent of the population works in agriculture, was among those who chose to work in his olive grove despite the risk of stumbling across unexploded clusters in his field. “I’m scared, but I want to work it. I lost money,” he said. 238 For the farmers who avoided their fields because of cluster munitions, however, the price of safety was the 2006 harvest. The leftover submunitions were particularly problematic for olive farmers, who usually harvest the annual crop in the fall months. In November 2006, UNDP estimated that duds contaminated around 4.7 square kilometers of olive groves. 239 The olive crop typically alternates between a good crop one year and a bad crop the next; the 2006 harvest was expected to be the good crop. “We can’t work. We lost the season,” said Àli Muhammad Mansour, the mukhtar of Àitaroun, where 90 percent of the population works in agriculture. 240 “We want to be able to work the new season. People are scared to work.” The mukhtar of Majdel Selm told Human Rights Watch that 50 percent of his village relies on agriculture, but given the numerous cluster duds found in the fields, “We cannot work in the agriculture fields because we are afraid.” 241 He estimated that it will be a year before the community can return to the olive groves. Tobacco farmers also faced devastation, unable to either harvest their crop in 2006 or plant for 2007. Tobacco is collected twice a year—once over the summer, and once six months later. In 2006 submunitions prevented farmers from salvaging 237 Human Rights Watch interview with Allan Poston, chief technical advisor, National Demining Office, UNDP, Beirut, November 29, 2006. 238 Human Rights Watch interview with Kasim M. Àleik, head of Yohmor muncipality, Yohmor, October 26, 2006. 239 UNDP, “CBU Contamination by Land Use,” current as of November 29, 2006. 240 Human Rights Watch interview with Àli Muhammad Mansour, mukhtar, Àitaroun, October 27, 2006. 241 Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad Àlaa Aldon, mukhtar, Majdel Selm, October 26, 2006. 79 Human Rights Watch February 2008
tobacco left after the war, which disrupted the scheduled harvest. Human Rights Watch spoke with a tobacco farmer who estimated that he would lose around four million Lebanese pounds, or $2,666, because he could not harvest his crop. 242 Àtif Wahba of Àinata lost the summer crop when he fled the south during the war; when he returned, his field was saturated with clusters so he could not plant for the spring 2007 harvest. Instead, he worked as a day laborer, earning $10 or $20 per day, while his fields went untended. 243 Unexploded submunitions continued to interfere with agriculture throughout 2007, even as clearance work reached more areas. While clearance has made significant progress, more remains to be done. Deminers have tried to prioritize agricultural areas based on the timing for cultivating crops and information from the municipalities and the ministerial level. 244 Dalya Farran of MACC SL explained: We built up a [clearance] schedule dividing the different harvest seasons throughout the year…. This means we target the CBU strikes in agricultural lands based on harvest season but we don’t finish…everything within the limited time frame. Then we move teams to another area based on another harvest season. 245 Because of the scale of the problem, however, deminers could not immediately address all agricultural land. In 2006 Ahmed Kadre, an olive farmer in Kfar Shufa, told Human Rights Watch that none of the demining organizations had reached his village by October, though the bombing left the olive groves just outside the village unusable. 246 Salih Ramez Karashet, a farmer from al-Quleila, near Tyre, had been asking the government to clear the estimated 200 submunitions from his land for weeks. “We started putting stones around the clusters to mark their location— 242 Human Rights Watch interview with Àtif Wahba, farmer, Àinata, October 27, 2006. 243 Ibid. 244 Human Rights Watch interview with Allan Poston, chief technical advisor, National Demining Office, UNDP, Beirut, November 29, 2006; email communication from Dalya Farran, media and post clearance officer, MACC SL, to Human Rights Watch, January 16, 2008. 245 Email communication from Dalya Farran, media and post clearance officer, MACC SL, to Human Rights Watch, January 16, 2008. 246 Human Rights Watch interview with Ahmed Kadre, farmer, Kfar Shufa, October 23, 2006. Flooding South Lebanon 80
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Lebanon Flooding South Lebanon Isra
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Civilian Harm......................
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Acronyms BLU CBU CCW COI DPICM ICRC
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Summary The Israel Defense Forces (
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Israel’s strikes in 2006 were the
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leaving behind vast numbers of haza
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compensate for the cluster rockets
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immediately before a negotiated cea
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knowingly or recklessly indiscrimin
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production, transfer and stockpilin
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numerous men, women, and children w
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To the Secretary-General of the Uni
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Cluster Munitions and International
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At least 14 states and a small numb
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• Refraining from launching attac
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This does not just mean immediate c
Page 34 and 35:
Israel is a major producer and expo
Page 36 and 37: Types of Cluster Munitions and Subm
Page 38 and 39: An unexploded M77, a US-made dual p
Page 40 and 41: This CBU-58B cluster bomb casing, s
Page 42 and 43: likely that the MZD-2s found in Leb
Page 44 and 45: contaminated by submunitions. 89 Ho
Page 46 and 47: Timing and Targets: When and How Cl
Page 48 and 49: with 500-pound bombs. The increase
Page 50 and 51: Human Rights Watch field research c
Page 52 and 53: percent, and dismissed the problem
Page 54 and 55: A UNIFIL deminer holds an Israeli-m
Page 56 and 57: Civilian Harm Cluster munitions hav
Page 58 and 59: 51 Human Rights Watch February 2008
Page 60 and 61: submunition causing it to explode.
Page 62 and 63: Dr. Àbdel Nasser Farran told Human
Page 64 and 65: Agriculture Perhaps the most danger
Page 66 and 67: exploded, and a young woman was pic
Page 68 and 69: from the war. 180 Tragedy struck wh
Page 70 and 71: injured in my legs. I still can’t
Page 72 and 73: in operation for many years, includ
Page 78 and 79: the grove of fruit trees. Though sh
Page 80 and 81: of the fighting. Although no one is
Page 82 and 83: oad to visit his cousin when his br
Page 84 and 85: Four-year-old Àli Muhammad Yaghi w
Page 88 and 89: especially because we needed to irr
Page 90 and 91: conflict interrupted existing clear
Page 92 and 93: An engine from a US-made M26 Multip
Page 94 and 95: duds around villages. 268 With the
Page 96 and 97: Various reasons exist as to why com
Page 98 and 99: Lack of Israeli Assistance Perhaps
Page 100 and 101: checkpoints. Similarly, UNIFIL has
Page 102 and 103: Israel’s Statements on the Use of
Page 104 and 105: This statement followed the finding
Page 106 and 107: investigations into Israel’s appa
Page 108 and 109: that would confirm that these weapo
Page 110 and 111: specific to the weapons. When conce
Page 112 and 113: disregard of that character, they g
Page 114 and 115: employed, the way that they were us
Page 116 and 117: are antipersonnel, area denial weap
Page 118 and 119: emain to take care of elderly or si
Page 120 and 121: early 2007 aimed at identifying the
Page 122 and 123: the United States, there is little
Page 124 and 125: Conclusion Israel’s use of cluste
Page 126 and 127: kidnapped IDF soldiers, and so aver
Page 128 and 129: Proportionality A further legal req
Page 130 and 131: In practice, this requires that the
Page 132 and 133: neutralization offers a definite mi
Page 134 and 135: it is more brutal. If Hizbullah had
Page 136 and 137:
Another issue of humanitarian conce
Page 138 and 139:
Acknowledgements This report was wr
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Flooding South Lebanon - Human Rights Watch

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