Attacks On United Nations Personnel During The 2006 Lebanon War - Other Incidents

Other Incidents

The UNIFIL press releases mention dozen of attacks and near misses on its presence during the present conflict.

• UN personnel were pelted with stones by an angry Lebanese crowd after recovering bodies from the aftermath of an IAF airstrike on a convoy fleeing Marwaheen close to Tyre.
• Shrapnel from tank shells fired by the IDF seriously wounded an Indian soldier on 16 July.
• A UNIFIL international staff member and his wife were killed after the Israeli air force bombed the Hosh district of Tyre, Lebanon, where they lived on, July 17. Their bodies were recovered from the rubble on July 26.
• Hezbollah fire wounded an Italian OGL observer on the border on July 23.
• An IDF tank shell hit a UNIFIL position south of Rmaich on Monday 24 July, wounding four Ghanaian soldiers.
• On July 25, Hezbollah opened fire on a UNIFIL convoy, forcing it to retreat.
• On 29 July, two Indian UN soldiers were wounded after their post was damaged during an IAF airstrike in Southern Lebanon.
• On 30 July, following an airstrike on a house in Qana where 28 civilians are confirmed killed with 13 missing, thousands of Lebanese protesters who had reportedly gathered spontaneously in the city centre attacked the UN building in Beirut along with UN staff.
• On 6 August, a Hezbollah rocket hit the headquarters of the Chinese UNIFIL contingent, injuring three Chinese peacekeepers.

• On 6 August, UNIFIL announced that “ince the outbreak of hostilities, four military observers from OGL, one UNIFIL international staff member and his wife were killed, and four Ghanaian soldiers, three Indian soldiers, three Chinese soldiers and one OGL military observer were wounded as a result of firing.”

• On 12 August, UNIFIL announced that a Ghanaian peacekeeper had been wounded by IDF artillery fire near the southern village of Haris.

• On 14 August, the IDF targeted what it said was a Palestinian faction in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in Saida. Two missiles were fired into a civilian residential area and killed UNRWA staff member Mr. Abdel Saghir.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council failed to agree on a statement responding to the Israeli attack after the United States refused to accept language condemning: "any deliberate attack against U.N. personnel."'

INTEGRATE taken from Targeting of civilian areas in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created by the United Nations, to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese Government restore its effective authority in the area. During the current (as in past conflicts; see Qana shelling) the peacekeeping force has come under attack from both sides, but mainly from Israeli forces. About 50 members of the unarmed UNTSO are being evacuated to lightly armed UNIFIL positions for security reasons.

The worst of these came on 25 July 2006, when four unarmed UNTSO peacekeepers from Austria, China, Finland and Canada were killed in an Israeli air strike on a UN observation post in southern Lebanon. According to the UN, the four had taken shelter in a bunker under the post. It had been shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery over a period of 6 hours, during which the post called an Israeli liaison officer ten times to call off the bombardement. Every time he promised to do so. Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a statement from Rome that he was " ... shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces." The site of the observation post was well known, and both sides in the conflict had the coordinates of the compound. However, as at the time Annan had no evidence for the bombing being deliberate, many pundits described Annan’s statement as indicative of the UN's anti-Israel bias. In press releases by UNIFIL on 26 July and 27 July it is noted that Hezbollah had been firing from close to 4 UNIFIL positions in Alma ash Shab, Tibnin Brashit and At Tiri. Ireland's Foreign Ministry said a senior Irish soldier working for the UN forces was in contact with the Israelis six times to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of U.N. staff and on several occasions they were reassured that it will.

According to an interview on CBC radio and multiple print sources, Retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, referring to an email he had received a few days previously from the now deceased Canadian peacekeeper Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, stated that "...what he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were (sic) targeting them and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it."