Friday, September 1 2006 14:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beirut: The number of people killed by cluster bombs in Lebanon dropped by Israel has climbed to 13 and nearly 50 have been seriously injured, putting added pressure on bomb clearance teams. Chris Clark, head of the UN Mine Action Service in southern Lebanon, said the explosives had gone off since the end of hostilities Aug 14. So far the UN team have located 390 separate Israeli strike sites where the munitions were used, he said. About 2,000 of the potentially deadly bomblets, which litter the areas, have been destroyed, he added. The UN has asked Israel to provide a list of sites targeted during its month-long offensive in Lebanon as crucial for the clean up. Cluster bombs contain sub-munitions, or smaller bombs, that are often no bigger than a torch battery, many of which fail to detonate immediately on impact. Israel and other countries, which have used the weapons, notably the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, often face criticism because the weapons can kill indiscriminately. "The situation is much more severe than what the UN encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo," said Dyala Farran, media officer in Tyre for the Mine Action Coordination Centre, a partnership between the UN and Lebanon's National Demining Office. The Israeli military is believed to have fired around 2,000-3,000 rounds of heavy ammunition - not only cluster bombs but also artillery shells and more conventional bombs - each day in the early days of its offensive against the Hezbollah. That figure rose to 5,000-6,000 rounds in the final days of the fighting. Farran said an estimated 10 percent of all munitions failed to explode. Franck Masche, 38, a former German soldier and his team from the British charity MAG have been destroying cluster munitions. The Aug 14 ceasefire halted a 33-day war between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. Doctors treating cluster bomb victims in a hospital in Tyre said most victims of such bombs usually loses their limbs because "the shrapnel, when you step on one of them or touch it with your hands, explodes, creating dozen of small (pieces of) shrapnel. "Most of our victims are children who touch the bomblets or villagers who stepped on them by mistake," Hussein Alam said. In addition to the problem posed by cluster bombs, southern Lebanon has also had to deal with around 400,000 landmines, many of which were left by the Israeli military when it occupied the region from 1985 to 2000.