A member of the Chinese UN Interim Force mine-clearing unit holds an unexploded bomblet dropped by Israeli forces. (Reuters)

CAIRO – The Israeli army has rained Lebanon with more than one million cluster bombs and used internationally banned weapons like phosphorous shells and imprecise weaponry during its 33-day war, a senior Israeli army officer has revealed.

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of the Israeli army's Rocket Unit said in a letter to Defense Minister Emir Peretz cited by the daily Haaretz on Tuesday, September 12.

He said the army fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets, quoting estimates from his battalion commander.

The cluster bombs release small bomblets in midair, expected to fall to the ground and explode on impact across a wide area.

They are designed to penetrate thick armor as well as to kill or maim people within several yards.

Israel launched its wide-scale offensive on July 12 on the claim of seeking the release of two soldiers taken prisoner by Hizbullah in a cross-border operation to exchange with Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

The onslaughts killed up to 1,200 people, nearly all civilians, and left the country's infrastructure in tatters.

Intensified

The Israeli commander complained that the highly inaccurate Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in the war in order to blanket Hizbullah fighters on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

MLRS is capable of firing a large quantity of unguided munitions, with a range of some 32 kilometers.

The commander said the vast majority of the said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

The United Nations accused Israel on August 30 of carpeting southern Lebanon with thousands of unexploded bombs in the final hours of its month-long war, when the stage was being set for a ceasefire.

The olive and vegetable fields in many southern Lebanese villages, the main source of income for thousands, have become no-go areas after being littered with unexploded cluster bombs and mines left behind by Israel.

The unexploded munitions continue to pose a deadly threat to the safety of Lebanese civilians retuning to their bombed-out homes in the south.

The United Nations estimates that more than 13 people have been killed and dozens wounded by such sub-munitions since the ceasefire took hold.

De-mining is expected to take at least a year.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called for investigating Israel's use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican representative to Geneva-based UN agencies, last week called for a moratorium on the use of cluster bombs.

The US last month said it was investigating whether Israel broke secret agreements in its use of US-made cluster bombs in its Lebanon war.

But several current and former US officials described the probe as cosmetic to save face.