(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — An Israeli cluster bomb has injured six boys in Lebanon’s southern village of Zibqine, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
Local media reports say the children were taken to the Lebanese-Italian Hospital in Tyre after approaching a cluster bomb left behind from the the 2006 war.
The children were reportedly finishing their picnic in a valley between the villages of Zibqine and Ezziyeh, when the bomb detonated.
Security sources say the victims were between six and eight years old.
“We were having a picnic next to a river in Zebqin and on the way back, my friend stepped on a device that exploded, and we were all hit,” six-year-old Hussein Bazzi said, according to Agence France-Presse.
According to the United Nations mine center, more than 30 Lebanese civilians have died in cluster bomb blasts in Lebanon since the war ended. The UN adds that Israel dropped 4 million cluster bombs during the 34-day conflict.
Human Rights Watch described the Israeli use of cluster bombs as “unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians” and that “they should never be used in populated areas.”
Experts say that up to 1 million of these devices failed to explode and continue to endanger civilians in the area. The United Nations and other international groups have been working to remove the deadly devices since 2006.
Israel refused to sign the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the development and use of these bombs.