TYRE - A Lebanese man was killed on Thursday by a cluster bomb dropped by Israeli forces during the 2006 war in Lebanon, a police official said. Hisham el-Ghossein, 39, was killed in the village of Qantara, near the southern town of Marjayoun, after stepping on the bomb while working in his field, the official said.

The munitions dropped by Israel during its devastating air war against Lebanon in July-August 2006 included at least a million cluster bomblets, according to the United Nations. Unexploded ordnance has killed or injured 257 people since the conflict ended in August 2006, according to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC). Of those killed, at least 30 were civilians. Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single container. The bomblets often do not explode on impact, but can do so later at the slightest touch, making them as deadly as anti-personnel landmines. MACC said that 43 percent of the land affected by the munitions has been cleared since the end of the 2006 war.