 |
 |
 |
|
|
Ready to eat crow with rice? Kofi Annan and Condoleezza Rice in Rome
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 27, 2006 |
|
| |
Contrary to claims by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel's bombing of a structure of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon was "apparently deliberate", evidence from a Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam Tuesday, had written that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, using it for cover. The terrorists were Israel's target by "necessity," the deceased observer said.
A senior U.N. peacekeeping operation official, who refused to be identified, claimed that on the day the deaths occurred, the only "known Hezbollah activity was 5 kilometers away." The undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jane Holl Lute, supplied the Security Council with information more ambiguously. "To our knowledge, unlike the vicinity of some of our other patrol bases, Hezbollah firing was not taking place within the immediate vicinity" of the base that was hit Tuesday.
Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, former commander of the Canadian UN observer, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, told CBC radio that the now-deceased officer had sent email to him, "describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position" in what Hess-von Kruedenersaid was "for tactical necessity -- not being targeted,'" MacKenzie said.
In one such e-mail, obtained by The New York Sun, Hess-von Kruedener wrote about heavy IDF artillery and aerial bombardment "within 2 meters of our position." The Israeli shooting, he added, "has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
The correspondence between the trooper and former commander amounted to "veiled speech in the military," Mr. MacKenzie, who once commanded the U.N. troops in Bosnia, told the CBC. "What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them, and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the U.N. They use the U.N. as shields knowing that they cannot be punished for it."
A spokesman for the peacekeeping operation department, Nicholas Birnbach, told the Sun yesterday that when the U.N. official told reporters that there was no Hezbollah activity within three miles of the U.N. camp, she was referring only to the Monday incident and not to the time period of several days earlier described in the UNIFIL observer's e-mail.
Birnbach, however, declined to produce a UNIFIL report that would back up Ms. Lute's assertion that there was no Hezbollah activity in the immediate vicinity of the post, which was manned by three other observers beside Hess-von Kruedener, the Sun report continued.
Annan and the peacekeeping official yesterday said they now "accept" Prime Minister Olmert's conveyance of regret over the incident. They also said they accept Mr. Olmert's characterization of it as a "tragic mistake," the official said. Ms. Okabe, however, told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Annan would not retract his assertion that Israel deliberately targeted the post.
Israel's deputy U.N. ambassador, Daniel Carmon, told the Sun, however, that while the IDF would welcome "any U.N. input," it did not intend to launch a joint investigation. "We will conduct a thorough investigation and inform the U.N. of the results in detail," he said.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
