thedynamictrend.com

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

An Israeli bombardment killed four United Nations Observers, despite multiple warnings by UN peacekeeper. The peacekeepers at the post said the area within a kilometer of the post was hit with precision munitions, including 17 bombs and 12 artillery shells, four of which directly hit the UN observation post. The fatal strike with a “precision-guided weapon” according to UN military personnel hit the post at about 7.20pm. The victims were Austrian, Canadian, Chinese and Finnish UN-observers.

The Irish foreign ministry said that Israel ignored repeated warnings from Lieutenant-Colonel John Molloy, a key UN liaising officer, that its bombs were falling close to United Nations observers in southern Lebanon. The warnings came allegedly before an Israeli bomb killed four of the U.N. observers. “On six separate occasions he [Lieutenant-Colonel John Molloy] was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff in South Lebanon”. “He warned: ‘You have to address this problem or lives may be lost’,” an Irish foreign affairs spokesman said.

Suzanne Coogan, a spokeswoman for the Irish Defence Minister Willie O’Dea said Molloy “warned the Israelis that they were shelling in very close proximity to the post, and his warnings were very specific, explicit, detailed and stark.” She concluded, “Obviously those warnings went unheeded.”

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said “Evidence that we have would suggest that this was either an incredible accident or else was in some way directly targeted”.

In 1996 over 100 civilians were killed by the Israeli bombing of a UN compound in Lebanon in an incident known as the Qana shelling.