International Red Cross seeks cluster bombs ban

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was stepping up its campaign against the weapons because of Israel's use of the scattershot bombs during its monthlong war with Lebanon. The United States and Russia also have resisted efforts to eliminate the weapons.

"The problems associated with cluster munitions are not new," said Philip Spoerri, director of international law for the ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war. "In nearly every conflict in which they have been used, significant numbers of cluster munitions have failed to detonate as intended and have instead left a long-term and deadly legacy of contamination."

A report last week by Handicap International said cluster bombs have killed about 3,800 civilians and injured 5,500 more in 24 countries. Unofficial estimates put the real number of victims at 100,000, the Brussels, Belgium-based group said.

Cluster bomblets, which can be as small as a flashlight battery, are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. A single container fired to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the mini-explosives over an area the size of a football field.

Human-rights groups have estimated that Israel dropped as many as 4 million of the bomblets in Lebanon. As many as 40 percent of the submunitions failed to explode on impact, U.N. officials have said.

Those that do not explode may detonate later at the slightest disturbance, experts say. Children are especially vulnerable because the bomblets are often an eye-catching yellow with small parachutes attached.

"It is simply unacceptable that (civilians) should return to homes and fields littered with explosive debris," Spoerri said.

No international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions, specifically forbid the use of cluster bombs.

The Red Cross is the first major organization to call for a ban since the Israel-Hezbollah war.