UN: Israel withholds information on killing of four peacekeepers

Middle East News

Sep 29, 2006, 17:41 GMT

New York - The United Nations said Friday Israel rejected 'repeated demarches' for information pertaining to its airstrikes that killed four UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon in July. The four UN military personnel were killed on July 25 by a 500- kilogramme precision-guided bomb fired by a Israeli jetfighter at the UN post at Khiam at the height of raging fighting between the Israeli Defence Forces and Shiite Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took responsibility and apologized for the attack. After a UN-ordered probe, investigators told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday that all standard operating procedures were followed by UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and no additional measures by them could have changed the outcome of the incident. 'The board (of investigators) did not have access to operational or tactical level of IDF commanders involved in the incident, and was therefore unable to determine why the attacks on the UN position were not halted' despite repeated demands to the Israeli authorities from UN personnel to avoid bombing the facility, the board said in a statement. The four UN peacekeepers killed, all high-ranking officers, were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. © 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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Eric BeckermannSep 29th, 2006 - 19:17:32

......and one of those Canadian officers killed had only hours prior to the air assault sent text messages citing the presence of Hizballah all around the UN bunker. In other words, the terrorits where tactially deployed to fire on the Israeli's while using the UN position for cover. In fact, Israel discovered and presented photgraphic evidence of several Hizballah bunkers built adjacent to UN positions.

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UN: Israel withholds information on killing of four peacekeepers

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