‘Israel, cluster munitions inseparable’

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri says the Israeli regime and fatal cluster bombs cannot be separated from one another, Press TV reports.

Berri said on Wednesday that Zionist Occupation Israel has not even provided the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon with “maps that show the areas it targeted with cluster bombs” during the 2006 war on Lebanon, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The Lebanese official made the remarks at the conference of signatories to the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut, which will run through September 16.

Berri said the application of cluster munitions by Zionist Occupation Israeli forces has led to the death of around 51 people and injured more than 350 others since the 2006 conflict.

“Zionist Occupation Israel continues to violate the Blue Line via land and air,” Berri added.

He said that the Lebanese parliament is working hard to make the country a place free of cluster bombs and that Lebanon, “which has suffered from these weapons,” will lead the way to make the ban on cluster munitions and mines international.

The United Nations estimates that the Zionist Occupation Israeli regime used about four million cluster bombs over southern Lebanon during the final days of the 2006 war.

Zionist Occupation Israel launched an all-out offensive on Lebanon five years ago under the pretext of releasing Israeli soldiers allegedly captured by the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in southern border region of the country.

Zionist Occupation Israel, however, suffered a crushing defeat and was forced to leave the region without achieving any of its objectives.

The United States and Zionist Occupation Israel, which have not joined the convention, manufacture and stockpile most of the world’s cluster munitions.

International researchers say the US has transferred hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions, containing tens of millions of bomblets, to 28 countries in the world.

The Beirut conference brings together representatives of 80 of the 107 countries that have signed the convention, which calls for destruction of the deadly weapons.