ELEVEN years old, the schoolboy was too engrossed watching a bulldozer demolishing his neighbour’s house to notice one of the pine cones fall from the branch above his head.

Except it wasn’t a cone.

Seconds after the tiny object hit the ground Mohammed Hassan Sultan was dead, killed by shrapnel to the heart from an Israeli cluster bomb that had lain unnoticed in the tree for six weeks.

He was among 20 Lebanese people killed by Israeli explosives left over from the 34-day conflict, most of them victims of the one million cluster bombs that the United Nations estimates litter south Lebanon.

Two months after the ceasefire these pose a daily threat of death and dismemberment for hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled north during the war to escape Israeli bombing raids but returned before the area could be cleared, desperate to tend crops and repair homes before winter sets in.

Another 120 people have been wounded, including four of Mohammed’s schoolfriends who were sitting with him in the village of al-Sowana on September 27. “We were sitting on a low wall when one of the trucks carrying the rubble away touched the tree,” said Hussain Sultan, 10, who was hit in the chest by shrapnel.

“I didn’t feel anything, I just heard a big explosion. Everyone told us not to go into the farms. But we thought that place was safe because the Lebanese Army had cleared it.” Mohammed’s father, Hassan, 36, confirmed that soldiers had swept the site but adds sadly: “They didn’t have perfect equipment.”

Near the tree lay a distinctive scorched white ribbon, of the type commonly attached to US-manufactured M42 cluster bombs. Scattered from bombs or rockets, the M42’s ribbon twirls as it falls, turning a screw that arms the fuse.

Israel reacts to criticism from the UN and human rights groups by pointing out that cluster bombs are not illegal under international law. “Israel uses no weapons which are outlawed by agreed international conventions,” said Mark Regev, a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “These weapons are in the arsenals of Nato countries, and have been used by them.”

In al-Sowana, a Shia village, support for Hezbollah is strong and everyone shrugs when asked what Israel might have been aiming for. If the Islamist guerrillas were storing rockets or weapons, no one will tell.

Mohammed’s mother Jumana, who is bitter at Israel for “throwing these cluster bombs around houses and fields” now keeps her other sons inside the house. It is a common fear in south Lebanon, where many farmers are too scared to go into olive groves, even though harvest-time approaches.

Dalya Farran, of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre, said that there were 770 new cluster bomb sites across south Lebanon but complained that they had received little help from Israel. “All we got were maps giving areas ‘highly likely’ to contain unexploded ordnance, but they didn’t mention what type and said they were not exhaustive,” she said.

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