South Lebanon as seen from an Israeli military base on Aug. 16, 2021. (Credit: Jalaa Marey/AFP)
BEIRUT — A man was injured on Tuesday by the explosion of an Israeli mine in Aita al-Shaab, in southern Lebanon, reported the state-run National News Agency.
Here’s what we know:
• The man was transferred to Sheikh Ragheb Harb Hospital in Nabatieh.
• The explosion of mines scattered in the north and south of Lebanon at the end of the civil war and 2006 war with Israel, which continue to claim victims.
• Demining operations carried out by UN teams and the Lebanese army have eliminated a large number of these devices, but some remain.
• Lebanon had asked for the UN to assist in clearing the mines that the Israeli Occupying Forces are responsible for laying in our territories, noting that Israel did not hand over the complete maps and specific locations of the mines, which continues until today.
• The Rome Court in 2006 urged the Israeli Government to hand over the maps showing the locations of the hundreds of thousands of mines and anti-personnel munitions, or people and children would continue to die.
• During its occupation of southern Lebanon in the 1980s Israel laid an estimated 400,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines on the border.
• Around 40 per cent of the mines do not detonate on initial impact, instead remain on the ground and explode when stepped on by civilians, sometimes decades later.
• The weapon, banned by 108 countries, releases small explosive submunitions, which spread over large areas.
• Last February, a young Lebanese man was killed and another injured by the explosion of a mine near Ras Baalbeck, in the Bekaa.