Thursday, July 27, 2006

More on the UN outpost attack

From where I sit it looks like a case of "he said-she said" in regards to what really went on.
It also looks like some @ss covering and a chance for a notably anti-Semitic organization to try to stab Israel. Again.

First today's Examiner says that the UN claims that they were asking Israel to stop attacking them for 10 hours.

JERUSALEM - U.N. observers in Lebanon telephoned the Israeli military 10 times in six hours to ask it to stop shelling near their position before an attack killed four observers and sparked international anger with Israel, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

The U.N. observation post near Khiam came under close Israeli fire 21 times Tuesday - including 12 hits within 100 yards and five direct hits from 1:20 p.m. until the peacekeepers' post was destroyed at 7:30 p.m., Jane Lute, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told the U.N. Security Council in New York.

U.N. officials said Hezbollah militants had been operating in the area of the post near the eastern end of the border with Israel, a routine tactic to prevent Israel from attacking them.

"We did repeatedly in recent days say (to Israel) that this was an exposed position, that Hezbollah militants were 500 meters (yards) away shielding themselves near U.N. workers and civilians," U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said. "That's why it is so inexplicable that what happened."

~snip~

Officials in the outpost called the Israeli army 10 times during those six hours, and each time an army official promised to have the bombing stopped, according to a preliminary U.N. report on the incident, which was shown to an Associated Press reporter on Wednesday.

Once it became clear those pleas were being ignored, the force's commander sought the involvement of top officials in New York, a senior U.N. official in New York said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation of the incident was not yet complete.

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown and Lute herself then made several calls to Israel's U.N. mission "reiterating these protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling," Lute said.

The bombing put Israel on the defensive two weeks into its campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon
. Just like they hoped it would.

So here we have a notoriously anti-Israel organization making claims and investigation entirely anonymously.

I wonder if in their 'investigation' they'll have any mention of this e-mail from one of the Canadian soldiers who was killed in that bunker? I had to look hard for it because I have to rely on the liberally biased major search engines out there. I am also kind of surprised that CNN didn't purge this bit of exonerating evidence from their site.

It's a longish e-mail from Canadian Major Praeta Hess-von Kruedener- who died in the UN outpost- giving a thumbnail history of his outpost.

I'll let you read the body at your convenience, but give you the money quote here:

What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing. The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters from our patrol base.
This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity.
I thank you for the opportunity to provide you with some information from the front lines here in south Lebanon.

Maj Hess-von Kruedener

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