Cluster bombs appropriate: prosecutors

Israeli prosecutors announced on Monday that they would not press charges over the army's use of cluster bombs during the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, actions that had been widely criticized by human rights organizations.

The announcement came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams met here on Monday evening for the second time since the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

Cluster are not banned in warfare, but their use is criticized because they contain "bomblets" that explode over a wide area and may strike unintended targets. Bomblets that fail to explode become, in effect, land mines that can be detonated by civilians long after fighting has ended. More than 30 Lebanese are said to have been killed by munitions left behind after the monthlong war last summer.

Soon the fighting stopped, a top UN aid official, Jan Egeland, described Israel's use of cluster bombs as "shocking" and "completely immoral," not least, he said, because most were fired in the last 72 hours of the war, when it was clear that the conflict was moving toward a resolution.

In November last year, the Israeli's army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, ordered an investigation into whether the bombs had been fired according to his orders. He resigned in January amid widespread domestic criticism over the way the war was fought.

In a statement on Monday, the army said its chief investigator, Major General Gershon Hacohen, had determined that the use of the cluster bombs did not violate international law, and that "the majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas, areas from which Hezbollah forces operated and in which no civilians were present."

Hezbollah also been accused of using cluster munitions among the 4,000 rockets it fired into Israel during the fighting.

In the US meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, no progress was registered on substantial issues. But the two sides agreed that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would meet later this week and in early January, Israeli officials said, before US President George W. Bush arrives in the region on Jan. 8.

Both sides have pledged to fulfill their obligations under a 2003 peace plan known as the road map, which calls on Israel to halt all settlement activity, including natural growth, and on the Palestinians to act to halt all violence against Israelis.

The Palestinians had said ahead of Monday's meeting that they intended to focus on Israel's plans to continue building in settlements in areas that the Palestinians claim for their future state. After the meeting, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, condemned the settlement building and said that the Palestinians demanded a total construction freeze before negotiations toward a peace deal could start.

Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that the Palestinians had indeed raised the settlement issue and that Israeli negotiators had raised the security issue.