The U.S. State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement has donated $1.5 million to The Mines Advisory Group (MAG), which works to clear southern Lebanon of mines and unexploded cluster bombs left over from the war between Hizbullah and Israel in July 2006, the Daily Star Lebanon reported.
“The presence of conventional weapons following the 2006 conflict between Hizbullah and Israel has impeded post-conflict recovery. MAG’s project is critical to restoring access to land for agricultural development and infrastructure rehabilitation and development,” according to a press release from the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
MAG, together with the Lebanese Mine Action Center, will deploy teams in eight communities in southern Lebanon with the object of clearing 7,319,459 square feet of prioritized land which will free up the land for agriculture and infrastructure reconstruction and development.
Since the conflict in southern Lebanon ended, the U.S. government has provided over $15.5 million to support the clearance of explosive remnants of war.
The war in 2006, also known as the Second Lebanon War, raged for 34 days following a cross border raid by Hizbullah fighters in which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped.
During the fighting, Israel fired large amounts of cluster bombs into the area of battle. The munition is heavily criticized due to its construction, in which an artillery shell explodes and releases several smaller explosives over an area. While an effective weapon against enemy fighters, the main problem with the bombs is the high rate of small bombs that do not explode when dropped, hence turning the area in to a minefield.