UNITED NATIONS - Cluster bombs dropped by Israel on southern Lebanon in the conflict with Hizbollah are still threatening civilians, a top U.N. official said on Wednesday, calling Israel "completely immoral" for using the weapons in residential areas.

Bomb experts from the Mines Advisory Group explode a cluster bomb after finding it in the southern Lebanese village of Sultaniyeh. UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said that thousands of civilians were at risk in south Lebanon from unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Israeli forces in the last three days of the war against Hezbollah guerrillas.[AFP]

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said some of the bombs fired by Israeli forces in the last days of the war were made in the United States and urged Washington to talk to the Jewish state to stem the flow of the deadly arms.

"I hope the U.S. will talk to the Israelis on that," Egeland told a news conference. "It's an outrage that we have 100,000 unexploded bombs among where children, women, civilians, shop keepers and farmers are now going to tread."

Egeland criticized Israel for firing nearly all of the cluster bombs during the last three days of its month-long war with Lebanon's Hizbollah.

"What's shocking and completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution and an end of this," Egeland said.

Cluster bombs burst into bomblets and spread out near the ground. While some aim to destroy tanks, others are designed to kill or maim humans over a wide area.

Those that fail to explode might resemble a soda can while others look like dusty rocks. Each bomblet packs enough force to rip off a leg or kill a child, and international law bans the use of such weapons in civilian areas.

Israel denies using the weapons illegally and accuses Hizbollah of firing rockets into Israeli territory from Lebanese towns and villages.

Egeland said U.N. officials had not yet sought an explanation from Israel on its late offensive, because the information had come only recently.

He estimated it would take a year to 15 months to clean up the bombs, which are spread over large areas of homes, farmland and commercial centers.

During the conflict, Hizbollah guerrillas blended into civilian districts and launched rockets into Israel, "inviting (an Israeli) response," he said.

"Every day people are maimed, wounded and killed by these ordinances," said Egeland. But he said he did not have numbers of how many Lebanese have been killed so far.

About 250,000 Lebanese civilians still cannot get into their homes because they have been destroyed or are too close to unexploded shells or bombs, he said.

Israel was planning to turn over maps of where it dropped or fired the cluster bombs, he said, adding: "That is also taking some time." An August 11 U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at ending the fighting called on Israel to turn over all maps it had of land mines in Lebanon.