Word: lebanon
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...that surprising that the United Nations and others are trading charges in the wake of the Israeli air strike that killed four U.N. observers in South Lebanon Tuesday. But the finger-pointing is also going on inside the Israeli military over who is in fact responsible for the deadly incident...
...maps used by field officers and pilots, according to the source, the U.N. positions in south Lebanon are clearly marked in blue, which makes it harder to understand why the error occurred. It's common, especially when the suspected enemy target is stationary, that a dialogue ensues between the fighter pilot and his commander to double-check that the coordinates are correct. This is especially true in air strikes on Gaza, where the suspected target is often in densely populated areas. In the heat of battle, it's possible that this dialogue never happened, resulting in a tragic mistake...
...four unarmed U.N. observers killed in the incident - from Canada, Austria, Finland and China - were members of the 50-strong Observer Group-Lebanon, part of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which has been monitoring the armistice lines along Israel's border since 1948. Their post, which consisted of a three-story whitewashed building with a bomb shelter, was only about 100 yards from a former South Lebanese Army prison that now serves as a Hizballah-run museum. There was no hiding that it was a U.N. post; "U.N." was painted in big black letters on the white walls...
...days leading up to the deadly strike, there had been several near misses of the U.N. post, all falling within a 300-yard radius, according to an officer of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Then, at around 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, one aerial bomb exploded 300 yards away and the four observers went "ground hog" (UNIFIL's term for going to the bomb shelter). Soon after, according to the UNIFIL officer, UNIFIL contacted the Israeli military to warn them that one of their bombs had fallen close to a U.N. position. Over the next six hours, another...
...Israelis that was discernible to UNIFIL. The officer contends that the Israelis did not halt their air strikes because "they don't care. They feel they have more important issues on their mind to hit Hizballah. Everything else is secondary." According to a senior U.N. official in Lebanon, the Israelis used "precision guided missiles," inferring that the air strike was not an accident...