Attacks on United Nations personnel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...

, United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

personnel in Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

have come under a number of attacks. On 25 July 2006, four unarmed United Nations Truce Supervision Organization

United Nations Truce Supervision Organization

The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Its primary task was providing the military command structure to the peace keeping forces in the Middle East to enable the peace keepers to observe and maintain the...

(UNTSO) peacekeepers were killed in an Israeli air strike on a UN observation post in southern Lebanon.

UN operations in Lebanon

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, was created by the United Nations, with the adoption of Security Council Resolution 425 and 426 on 19 March 1978, to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon which Israel had invaded five days prior, restore international peace and security,...

, or UNIFIL, was created by the United Nations

United Nations

, by Security Council Resolution 425 and 426 on 19 March 1978. UNIFIL objective was to confirm Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i withdrawal from Lebanon

Lebanon

, to restore international peace and security, and to help the Lebanese Government restore effective authority in the area. The first UNIFIL troops to arrive in the area on 23 March 1978 were reassigned from other UN peacekeeping

Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....

operations in the area (namely UNEF and UNDOF).

During the 1982 Lebanon War

1982 Lebanon War

The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...

, U.N. positions were overrun, primarily by the South Lebanon Army

South Lebanon Army

The South Lebanon Army , also "South Lebanese Army," was a Lebanese militia during the Lebanese Civil War. After 1979, the militia operated in southern Lebanon under the authority of Saad Haddad's Government of Free Lebanon...

forces under Major Saad Haddad

Saad Haddad

Saad Haddad was the founder and head of the South Lebanon Army . Several sources have suggested Haddad's involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982.-Lebanese Civil War:...

. These were the indigenous Lebanese forces supported by the IDF

Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

. During the occupation, UNIFIL's function was mainly to provide humanitarian aid. In 1999, Israel undertook a full withdrawal, which concluded in 2000 and enabled UNIFIL to resume its military tasks. The UN Security Council

United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...

has extended UNIFIL's mandate until August 31, 2006.

UNIFIL's function was mainly the provision of food and aid to locals in Southern Lebanon. In 1999, Israel undertook a full withdrawal, which concluded in 2000 and enabled UNIFIL to resume its military tasks. At Lebanon' request, in January 2006 the UN extended UNIFIL's mandate to expire 31 July 2006.

25 July attack on UN observation post

Attack

On 25 July 2006 four unarmed United Nations Truce Supervision Organization

United Nations Truce Supervision Organization

(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, which was a three story building inside a patrol base in Khiyam. It had been shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery over a period of 6 hours. An Israeli plane then dropped a bomb, destroying the post. During the bombardment, the post called an Israeli liaison officer ten times to call off the bombardment. According to a UN official who had seen the preliminary report, an Israeli official promised to halt the bombing each time. UN military personnel on the ground along the Israel-Lebanon border reported that the munitions hitting the UNTSO position were precision-guided.

A UNIFIL rescue team was immediately dispatched to the scene. They recovered the bodies of three observers from the rubble under artillery fire from the IDF. Attack in the vicinity continued as rescuers tried to reach those killed or injured, UNIFIL said. UNIFIL said there had been at least 14 incidents of fire close to the post since afternoon. Daniel Ayalon

Daniel Ayalon

Daniel "Danny" Ayalon is an Israeli politician who currently serves as Deputy Foreign Minister and as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu...

, Israel's ambassador to the United States, said that "UNIFIL obviously got caught in the middle" of a gunfight between Hezbollah guerillas and Israeli troops."We do not have yet confirmation what caused these deaths. It could be (Israel Defense Forces). It could be Hezbollah," he said.

Victims

By 8 August 2006, the bodies of observers were retrieved and identified. The four victims of the attack, from UNTSO Team Sierra, were:

Sierra Team Leader: Major Hans-Peter Lang, 44, from Styria
Styria (state)
Styria is a state or Bundesland, located in the southeast of Austria. In area it is the second largest of the nine Austrian federated states, covering 16,401 km². It borders Slovenia as well as the other Austrian states of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Burgenland, and Carinthia. ...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. He is survived by an 11-year-old son and his 70-year old mother.
Sierra Deputy Team Leader: Lieutenant Senior Grade Jarno Mäkinen, 29, from Kaarina
Kaarina
Kaarina is a small city and municipality of Finland.It is located in the Finland Proper region and is a neighbouring town of Turku, which is the capital of Finland Proper, therefore Kaarina is a part of the Greater Turku region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of...

, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. Lt Mäkinen was a former unit commander in the Uusimaa Brigade. He was transferred to the UNTSO in November 2005.
Major (Postumously promoted Lieutenant Colonel) Du Zhaoyu (杜照宇), 34, from Jinan
Jinan
Jinan is the capital of Shandong province in Eastern China. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of the region from the earliest beginnings of civilisation and has evolved into a major national administrative, economic, and transportation hub...

, People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

. He had served as secretary to the military attache in the Chinese Embassy in India. He is survived by his wife and a one-year-old son.
Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is one of the three regular force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army. The regiment is composed of four battalions including a primary reserve battalion, for a total of 2,000 soldiers...

. He had previously served in Cyprus, Bosnia and Congo before serving in UNTSO from October 2005.

Responses

Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

initially stated that he was "…shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces." "This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," he said in a statement. "Furthermore, General Alain Pellegrini

Alain Pellegrini

Alain Pellegrini is a French general.A former student of the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, Pellegrini graduated from general staff schools before being appointed in Africa and the Middle East, and commanding a regiment of the troupes de marine in Fréjus...

, the U.N. force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."

Ayalon, Israeli ambassador to the United States called Annan's statement "outrageous," while Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman

Dan Gillerman

Dan Gillerman was Israel's 13th Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was appointed in July 2002 and assumed his post on January 1, 2003, serving through 2008.- Education :...

, said he, too, was "deeply distressed" that Annan alleged that the strike was deliberate. "I am surprised at these premature and erroneous assertions made by the secretary-general, who while demanding an investigation, has already issued its conclusions," Gillerman said in a statement. However, as at the time Annan had only circumstantial evidence for the bombing being deliberate, many pundits described Annan’s statement as indicative of the UN's anti-Israel bias.

An Israeli senior commander stated that Hezbollah forces fired rockets from as little as 30-40m from UNIFIL bases, seeking to avoid Israeli counter-fire, and had sought refuge in UNIFIL bases on occasion. UNIFIL maintained that Hezbollah fighters were not allowed into any of its bases. However, they reported more than 20 instances of rockets being fired from less than 500m from their positions, as well as a number of cases of small arms and mortar fire from within 100m. Additionally, UNIFIL reported several instances of their positions and vehicles being hit by Hezbollah mortars, small arms fire, or rockets.

On 26 July 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Ehud Olmert

Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....

phoned Kofi Annan and expressed his deep regret over the death of the four UN observers. He promised that Israel would thoroughly investigate the incident and would share the findings with Annan, but said that he was taken aback by secretary general’s statement saying that the Israeli attack on the UN post was “apparently deliberate”. The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman

Dan Gillerman

Dan Gillerman was Israel's 13th Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was appointed in July 2002 and assumed his post on January 1, 2003, serving through 2008.- Education :...

, ruled out major U.N. involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying that more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.

At a press conference the next day, Annan seemed to soften his stance and clarified that "[t]he statement said 'apparently deliberate targeting,'" stressing that the word "apparent is important in this." He added that he spoke to Olmert and accepted his "deep sorrow" for the incident, which he said Olmert "definitely believes" was a mistake that would be investigated.

Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper

Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

, said he does not believe Israel targeted the post, and pointed to the fact that Israel has been “co-operating with us in our evacuation efforts, in our efforts to move Canadian citizens out of Lebanon, and also trying to keep our own troops that are on the ground involved in the evacuation out of harm's way.” He also has exclaimed his concern with the UN in that the post “remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war.”

However, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern angered because Irish peace keeping troops had been on duty in the observation post 24 hours before the strike said that 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 UN staff.

Ireland has filed an official protest with Israel. China has also strongly condemned the action and demanded that Israel apologize for the attack. Austria's foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, told her Israeli counterpart by telephone that the bombing was unacceptable and urged Israel to stop its attack on the area.

In an interview with Reuters

Reuters

Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev

Mark Regev

Mark Regev , formerly Mark Freiberg, is an Australian-born Israeli diplomat and media spokesman. He is currently the spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel and an advisor on foreign press and public affairs, a position he has held since his appointment by the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert...

said that “Israel sincerely regrets the tragic death of the UN personnel in south Lebanon. We do not target UN personnel and, since the beginning of this conflict, we have made a consistent effort to ensure the safety of all members of (the UN peacekeeping force). This tragic event will be thoroughly investigated.”

On 27 July, the United Nations Security Council

United Nations Security Council

issued a statement calling on the Israeli government to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the incident and stressed that “Israel and all concerned parties” must comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law

International humanitarian law

International humanitarian law , often referred to as the laws of war, the laws and customs of war or the law of armed conflict, is the legal corpus that comprises "the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, as well as subsequent treaties, case law, and customary international law." It...

on the protection of UN personnel.

Investigation into Bombing

Israel has launched an investigation into the bombing and has concluded that the incident was an error. The report says flawed military maps meant the post was wrongly targeted.
Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, told that the report concludes the attack was an error. Israeli aircraft attacked the post in the belief it was a Hezbollah position.

July 18 email message

In an email dated 18 July received by CTV

CTV television network

CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...

and published 24 July, the deceased Canadian peacekeeper Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, stated: “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.”

According to retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie

Lewis MacKenzie

Major-General Lewis Wharton MacKenzie, UE, CM, CMM, MSC, O.Ont, CD is a retired Canadian general, author and media commentator. MacKenzie is most famous for establishing and commanding Sector Sarajevo as part of the United Nations Protection Force UNPROFOR in Yugoslavia in 1992...

, interviewed on CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

radio on 26 July, Hess-von Kruedener's phrase ‘due to tactical necessity’ was “veiled speech in the military. What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them.”
However, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener's widow Cynthia stated on 29 July that she blamed the IDF for her husband’s death. She said “Why did they bomb the UN site? In my opinion, those are precision-guided missiles [so] then that it is intentional.…And that wasn’t the only day they were firing on that base. My information from him [her husband] is that week upon week they had been firing on there, bombing near it.” It has not been determined as of yet if the munitions were guided or not.

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
Qana
Qana also spelled Cana is a village in southern Lebanon located southeast of the city of Tyre and north of the border with Israel. The 10,000 residents of Qana are primarily Shiite Muslim although there is also a Christian community in the village....

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 “[s]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
Haris
Haris is a traditional name for the star Gamma Boötis.It is also the name of:* Heris County, a county in East Azarbaijan, Iran** Heris, a city in East Azarbaijan, Iran* Haris, Salfit, a Palestinian village in the West Bank...

.

On 14 August, the IDF targeted what it said was a Palestinian faction in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in Saida
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...

. Two missiles were fired into a civilian residential area and killed UNRWA staff member Mr. Abdel Saghir.http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=7780

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

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

(UNIFIL) was created by the United Nations

United Nations

, to confirm Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i withdrawal from Lebanon

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

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

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

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

radio and multiple print sources, Retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie

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."

Total casualties

Country	Civilian	Military
Austria		1 dead
Canada		1 dead
China, People’s Republic of		1 dead 3 wounded
Finland		1 dead
Ghana		5 wounded
India		3 wounded
Italy		1 wounded
Nigeria	1 dead
Total	1 dead	4 dead 12 wounded

Israeli flyovers

In the aftermath of the war, aircraft of the Israeli Air Force

Israeli Air Force

The Israeli Air Force is the air force of the State of Israel and the aerial arm of the Israel Defense Forces. It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence...

began fly over Lebanon. In September 2006, Major General Alain Pellegrini

Alain Pellegrini

of France, commander of UNIFIL, warned that the flyovers violated the cease-fire, and that force might be used to stop the incursions. In October 2006, a number of incidents between the Israeli Air Force and UN peacekeepers took place:

On 3 October 2006, an Israeli fighter jet penetrated the 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) defence perimeter of the French frigate Courbet, triggering a diplomatic incident between Israel and France. Israel apologized after official protests from France.

On 24 October 2006, six Israeli fighter jets flew over a German vessel patrolling off Israel's coast just south of Lebanon, after a helicopter took off from the vessel without Israeli permission. The German Defense Ministry claimed that the planes fired flares, and one fired two shots into the air. Israeli officials denied the claim of two shots being fired, but claimed they did not know whether flares had been used.

On 31 October 2006, eight Israeli F-15
F-15 Eagle
The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is a twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter designed by McDonnell Douglas to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat. It is considered among the most successful modern fighters with over 100 aerial combat victories with no losses in dogfights...

fighter jets flew over many areas of Lebanon, including Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

. The jets also nose-dived over a French peacekeeping position in what was intercepted as attack formation. French troops responded by readying an anti-aircraft missile. According to French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie
Michèle Alliot-Marie
Michèle Jeanne Honorine Alliot-Marie, born 10 September 1946 and nicknamed MAM, is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement . A member of all but one right-wing governments of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, she was the first woman in France to hold the portfolios of Defense , the...

, the troops were "seconds away" from firing the missile at the jets.

External links

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UN operations in Lebanon

25 July attack on UN observation post

Attack

Victims

Responses

Investigation into Bombing

July 18 email message

Other incidents

Total casualties

Israeli flyovers

See also

External links