The Second War: Cluster Munitions, White Phosphorus, and Children

Last week, an independent journalist filming bomb damage in Iran near the village of Kafari came across US antitank mines lying in the streets and backyards of homes. The nearest military target was several miles away. Instead, the 'Gator'—a 500-pound cluster bomb that breaks apart in mid-air—had seeded the village with an instant, indiscriminate minefield.

The children of Kafari are now living in a minefield. And they are not alone.

Irony among military spokespersons

The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions has been ratified by 112 nations. The United States, Israel, and Iran have not signed it — nor have any of the three signed the relevant white phosphorus protocols or the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. All three have placed themselves, by deliberate policy choice, outside the international norms they are flouting.

In June 2025, an Israeli military spokesman condemned Iran's cluster munitions for seeking "to maximise the scope of damage," even as Israeli forces deployed them in Lebanon. Similarly, a US military spokesman branded Iranian weapons "inherently indiscriminate" while the US was dropping Gator bombs on Iranian soil.

Israel used cluster munitions extensively in previous conflicts and used them again in its most recent Lebanon war. Remnants of two different types have been documented in three locations south of the Litani River. For its part, Iran has fitted cluster warheads to an estimated 50–70 per cent of its ballistic missiles fired at Israel. Children in Israel have begun to pay the price: six children were injured in Bnei Brak on 24 March and a 12-year-old underwent surgery after the Dimona strike.

We have been here before

Tebnine Hospital, southern Lebanon, struck by Israeli cluster munitions on 13 August 2006 — one day before the ceasefire. Approximately 375 civilians had sought refuge inside. Source: Human Rights Watch / Digital Globe.

We know what comes next because Lebanon has already lived through it. Israel's 2006 war left approximately one million cluster submunitions unexploded across southern Lebanon. In the first months after that ceasefire, 27 people were killed and 179 wounded, among them 63 children. A mine clearing worker warned then: "We'll be clearing cluster munitions from the rubble for another decade." Nine years later, a boy who had been a toddler in 2006 was hospitalised when a bomblet he had walked past all his life finally detonated.

The danger now extends across an entire region including Israel, the Gulf states, and Iran. Cluster munitions and white phosphorus shells do not stop being dangerous when the conflict does. Submunitions have combat failure rates of up to 40 per cent. White phosphorus fragments reignite on re-exposure to oxygen. The Gator's antipersonnel mines are designed to self-destruct—but, as the journalist in Kafari discovered, they often fail to do so. Every day this war continues, fresh contamination is being laid down. Children will find it long after the headlines have moved on.

Lebanon signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions and committed to clear all remnants by May 2026. That deadline has now been buried under a new wave of bombardment, burying fresh ordnance on top of the old.

Human Rights Watch has documented Israel's use of white phosphorus over Lebanese homes. An independent researcher at Delft University has mapped 248 strikes across southern Lebanon; 39 per cent struck civilian areas. Amnesty International called Iran's cluster munition use "a flagrant violation" of international law. Israel itself has called on UNICEF to condemn Iranian cluster strikes against its children.

Four-year-old Ali Muhammad Yaghi was playing in front of his Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh house when a submunition in his neighbour's garden exploded. He suffered a serious arm injury. © 2006 Bonnie Docherty/Human Rights Watch

Where is UNICEF's voice?

UNICEF has not spoken out on the use of these munitions in this war. Its statements have been limited to general expressions of concern. That is not enough.

UNICEF must speak out—specifically and by name—against the use of cluster munitions and white phosphorus by all parties. It possesses a credible, authoritative voice on the weapons that will continue to kill children after this war ends. That voice needs to be heard now—not after a ceasefire, but while the ordnance is still being laid.

The silent war against the remnants of today’s strikes has already begun. The children of Kafari, Bnei Brak, and southern Lebanon deserve to know that the world's foremost children's organisation is paying attention—and is prepared to say so plainly.

Tom McDermott is a former UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.