Cluster Bombs Southern Lebanon’s Only Harvest this Year

Aita al-Shaab, Southern Lebanon—Beautiful rolling hills, verdant and fertile, are dotted with olive groves and family tobacco farms in this small village on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It was here that Hizballah captured the two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers that kicked off last year’s July-August war. And it was here that some of the fiercest street battles raged as remaining locals joined Hizballah to fight Israeli troops (...) But in the valleys below the city, rich, red dirt lies fallow even though Aita al-Shaab is an agricultural village. Fields above the town go ungrazed. Since last summer, after Israel dropped about one million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon alone—up to 40 percent of which the United Nations Mine Action Clearing Center (MACC) estimates lie unexploded--most farmers and shepherds have been too afraid to go onto their lands. Many I spoke with, like eco-system management and food sovereignty expert Rami Zurayk, believe that the Israeli government’s bombardment is a deliberate attempt to separate people from their lands...

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