"Israel" is still periodically using flechette shells in southern Lebanon, despite the deaths of several civilians and one UN worker from the deadly darts that UN forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) believe are implicitly banned by international conventions. The shells, each containing between eight and 12,000 five centimeter (two inch) long steel darts, are not expressly named in any weapons convention, a UNIFIL officer who asked to remain anonymous told AFP Friday. "However, the fact that they are not aimed at a specific target but scatter over a wide area, inflicting serious damage, including damage to civilian facilities, puts them indirectly into the category of banned weapons," he said. The 120 millimeter shells are fired by tank cannon and explode at a height of 500 meters (1600 feet), scattering the darts over an area of about one square kilometer (half a square mile), he said. A Norwegian member of UNIFIL was killed in southern Lebanon in 1993, when he was struck in the head by one of the darts. "We protested via the "Israel"-UNIFIL liaison committee. The "Israeli" army suspended their use for a time, but still uses them from time to time," the officer said. Often it is Lebanese civilians who are the victims of the shells, he added. In 1995, three members of one family were hit by darts when a shell exploded over the field they were ploughing in a village outside the "Israel"-occupied zone of southern Lebanon. One son was killed, the father was seriously injured and a second son was also hurt. Last year another man was injured as he stood at the door of his house, and his seven year old daughter was killed. In May this year, two workers with the Lebanese water authority were injured in an orchard. The doctor who operated on one of them in the hospital in Tyre told AFP that it took five hours to remove two darts which had lodged in the man's skull. The victim is still undergoing treatment, and suffers from constant headaches. Since that attack, UNIFIL forces have found holes from the darts riddling the walls of countless houses in the region".