Canadian probe blames IDF for UN observer deaths in Lebanon

OTTAWA - The deaths of four United Nations military observers during Israeli clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon two years ago were the result of errors made by the Israel Defense Forces, a Canadian Forces board of inquiry found Friday.

"The deaths of Canadian Maj. Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener and three other unarmed observers from China, Austria and Finland were tragic and preventable," the board said.

The UN observers died when their compound was hit by a 500-kilo bomb dropped by an Israel Air Force aircraft. The compound was also hit by four 155-mm artillery shells fired by the Israelis during clashes with Hezbollah, the report said. As the shelling and bombing in the vicinity of Patrol Base Khiam increased in frequency and accuracy, the decision was made to evacuate, said the report.

But the fatal bomb was dropped before the four observers could be withdrawn.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950394.html

:shrug:

These observers were put in harm's way as a calculated sacrifice to the UN's anti-Israel agenda.

Ahm - it was a verdict from a Canadian Forces military inquiry, not the UN.
Glad to help out.

If you're going to post hate-speech, or otherwise insane & extraterrestial rhetoric, can you put some
sort of warning in the subject line? Thanks.

That's like a cigar butt cursing out the guy who tossed it into the gutter.

Hezbollah put them there as "human shield's":sarcasm:

LEBANON: IDF told not to fire on unarmed observers, says UN

NEW YORK, 26 July 2006 (IRIN) - Despite repeated calls by a United Nations commander, by senior officials in the region and in UN headquarters in New York, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) made a direct aerial strike on a well-marked bunker in southern Lebanon, killing three unarmed UN observers, with a fourth presumed dead.

“I think the attack on UN positions and UN personnel is inexcusable and unacceptable. I think the briefing by the Secretariat is very clear. It sends a clear message,” said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya. “My government has made a number of demarches to ensure that the UN presence there has to be protected. But after all these demarches, things happened.”

The four unarmed peacekeepers, Chinese, Finnish, Canadian, and Austrian observers, were part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Three bodies have been recovered and the fourth is feared dead after an aerial bomb impacted directly on their patrol base near Khiam, southern Lebanon at 19.30 on Tuesday.

“Throughout the day, UNIFIL had protested, directly to the IDF each of these incidents of firing close to Patrol Base Khiam,” said Jane Holl Lute, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations in her briefing to the council.

Mark Malloch Brown, the UN Deputy Secretary-General, and UN peacekeeping officials made “half a dozen” telephone calls from the UN Secretariat in New York to Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman and his deputy over the course of the six-hour firing, according to a senior UN official.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=59886