KEY POINTS:
When two of his staff were recently killed in an explosion Andy Gleeson was left deeply shocked.
"It was something that affected everyone of us, but because of the nature of our work these accidents remain a constant threat," the 45-year-old says.
Gleeson is standing outside the headquarters
of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) on the outskirts of the town of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. He is talking about the deaths of Abbas Jabber, 29, and Ali Bittar, 23, two MAG colleagues who died last August. Jabber and Bittar were killed when a bomb exploded.
Gleeson points to the rusting remains of defused shells lying in the shade a few yards away.
"There's been so many conflicts in Lebanon, these types of munitions are everywhere," he says.
As technical operations manager with MAG - a British charity that clears the debris of war - Gleeson's remit is to cleanse Lebanon of thousands of unexploded cluster bombs delivered by Israel during the recent war with Hezbollah.
The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day battle between primarily Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli Defence Force. It killed more than a thousand people, most of whom were Lebanese civilians.
But though the conflict was brief, the war continues to cast a dark shadow over the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon. During the last 48 hours of the conflict alone, around one million cluster bombs are estimated to have been dropped by Israel into southern Lebanon.
Gleeson says the consequences for the local population have been nothing less than catastrophic. In the first four months after the ceasefire there were 209 casualties from unexploded submunitions and since then hundreds more people have been either killed or maimed for life.
A former army bomb disposal expert with 23 years service with the Royal Logistics Corps, Gleeson is not interested in politics.
"Our job is to make the land safe and to prevent more innocent people being hurt," he says.
Waideh Turkieh holds up a white ribbon to her chest as if it were a medal. "This is what killed my son," the Lebanese woman says.
Waideh, a thin 50-year-old who looks drawn and much older than her years, is dressed all in black to mourn the death of her eldest boy Ali.
On 15th August, 2006, he was killed by a cluster bomb and the macabre memento she holds in her hand is from the explosive device that blew up in his face.
"I call this the medal of death," Waideh says dryly. She offers me the ribbon to hold then says she intends to wear black for the rest of her life. Ali, only 20 when he died, was the pillar of the Turkieh family, she says.
A considerate young man, he gave up his education early in order to repair washing machines to help his mother and father out financially.
When I ask what her son looked like Waideh fetches a framed photograph of the young man from another room.
In the picture, Ali has cropped, dark hair and mischievous teenage eyes. He strongly resembles his father, Khaleel, who sits next to me drawing heavily on a cigarette.
Waideh, Khaleel and Ali's younger sister, Hiba, who offers round some Turkish coffee, are trying to come to terms with the loss of a beloved son and brother, and a recent war that decimated their lives.
The family lives in the village of Zowtar West in the rolling rugged hills of southern Lebanon, not far from the border with Israel.
Waideh points towards a hill a couple of hundred yards away, where builders wearing red hardhats hammer and drill to construct a house.
"Our village was targeted and badly hit during the fighting and eight homes over there were destroyed. The Israelis were over there," Waideh says, turning and pointing to where the land rises in the south.
The Turkiehs' home was hit by shells and its concrete roof is full of gaping holes from missiles and flying shrapnel. Waideh takes back the white ribbon from the M42 cluster bomb and explains that the device was lodged in a grapevine.
"When we returned to our village after the ceasefire, the men went out checking for cluster bombs on our land. It was the first day after the ceasefire. Ali survived the war but was killed on the first day of peace. How could that be?" she says.
Gleeson and his MAG colleagues are working to clear Zowtar West of bombs and the Turkieh family hope to be able to access their land again soon. They are generous with their praise for the NGO, as the villagers have received little help from the Lebanese government or elsewhere.
Aside from Lebanon, MAG is operational in Angola, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Laos, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Vietnam, Burundi, Cyprus and Somalia. Its humanitarian efforts have been widely acknowledged and in 1997 the organisation was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for a campaign to ban landmines.
MAG began clearing mines in Lebanon at the end of the First Lebanon War in 2000, so the charity was already operational in the country when the latest war erupted. There are more than 400 staff working clearing between 300,000 and 500,000sq m of contaminated land each month.
Gleeson, whose wife Fiona lives in Inverness, Scotland, with his daughters Christina, 5, and Bethany, 4, has spent much of his life working in hotspots around the world.
During his army career he worked in Northern Ireland and with MAG he's been to Iraq. When the fighting in Lebanon began in 2006 his wife and children were on a visit to Nabatieh and the Gleeson family were among thousands of British ex-pats evacuated from Beirut.
"It was a frightening experience for everyone but I returned to Lebanon as soon as I could after the ceasefire took place to start clearing the bombs," Gleeson says.
Stressing that MAG is apolitical, Gleeson says the charity's effectiveness would increase if Israel would provide information on drop locations and the number of cluster bombs used during the war.
Until they do, Lebanon will never be 100 per cent bomb-free.
Of course, the use of cluster bombs remains highly controversial.
Israel, among others including the USA, has declined to participate in the Oslo Process to endorse an international treaty banning the devices. More than 80 nations have signed up and the next in a series of meetings takes place in Wellington next week.
Ahead of the conference, the Israeli Embassy in London confirmed that cluster bombs were used during the war but a spokesman said they were legal under international law and used solely on military targets in Lebanon.
"Israel is a signatory to the Convention on Conventional Weapons which covers modern warfare. We have passed information to the UN with regards to cluster bombs and provided operational maps. We have not identified exact locations, however, as this would expose our intelligence."
The legacy of war - as Gleeson will attest to - certainly smacks you hard in the face.
On our penultimate day, we visit a primary school in the village of Siddiquin which is hosting an event to mark International Day for Cluster Bomb Victims.
A couple of hundred excited schoolchildren are gathered in the main hall to watch a magician. The walls of the school are covered in balloons and posters produced by UNICEF to educate children on what cluster bombs look like.
For some children here the advice is too late, including 8-year-old Mahmoud Balmas who lost his right eye after kicking a cluster bomb.
We also meet Raasha Zayoun, 17, who lost her left leg when a bomb exploded in her living room. She'd been emptying a bag of thyme her father had collected to sell.
At the end of the show some of the children start to burst balloons. "BANG! BANG! BANG!" The noise echoes loudly round the hall and Raasha's face turns white with shock.
The pain of war does not end with a ceasefire.
* MAG's work is funded by ECHO (the EU's humanitarian aid department). For more information or to make a donation, go to: www.mag.org.uk
