Israel shelled UN compound in Lebanon 1996. 106 civilians killed.

[Karmadillo]

What a coincidence they've shelled the UN again. Accidents happen, I guess.

http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1198

Qana, Ten Years Later

April 18, 2006 will mark the 10th year since Israel's shelling of a UN Compound in Qana, Lebanon left 106 civilians and more than 300 injured, marking one of Lebanon's bloodiest massacres.

On April 18, 1996, Israeli Armed Forces shelled a United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Compound in Qana, Lebanon killing 106 civilians and wounding hundreds of others. The shelling marked one of the bloodiest massacres in Lebanon’s modern history. Israeli and American pressures shelved a UN investigation, but legal actions are now being taken in an effort to redress this injustice.

more...

[Karmadillo]

1. UN military advisor suggests it wasn't an accident.

http://www.merip.org/mero/mero120899.html

<edit>

UN Military Advisor Major General Franklin van Kappen conducted an official on-site investigation of the Qana incident three days later. In his report to former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali, van Kappen concluded that "while the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the UNIFIL compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural error," as Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officials had claimed. Van Kappen indicated that IDF officials of "some seniority" were involved in orders to fire upon the base, which they knew was sheltering hundreds of unarmed civilians. The UN investigation noted that the IDF had positioned a drone (pilotless plane) over the FIJIBATT compound at the time of the shelling. Such aircraft are commonly used by IDF gunners to set targets. International human rights organizations also conducted investigations into the Qana incident, and concluded that the shelling of the compound was most likely deliberate, not mistaken. (See the relevant documentation on the following Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch web sites:<www.amnesty.org/news/1996/51504996.htm> and <www.hrw.org/hrw/summaries/s.israel-lebanon979.html>).

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution (UNGA Res. A/RES/50/22 C) on April 25, 1996 characterizing Israel's actions during the "Grapes of Wrath" offensive as "grave violations of international laws relating to the protection of civilians during war." The United States and Israel vigorously contended that the attack had been an unfortunate mistake, and the story gradually disappeared from all but the memories of those civilians, UNIFIL personnel and journalists who had witnessed the carnage at Qana.

more...

[Karmadillo]

2. Amnesty International concluded the attack was intentional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qana_shelling

<edit>

Amnesty International conducted an on-site investigation of the incident in collaboration with military experts, using interviews with UNIFIL staff and civilians in the compound, and posing questions to the IDF, who did not reply. Amnesty concluded, "the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound."<17>

Human Rights Watch concurred, "The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground -- and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians -- violated a key principle of international humanitarian law."<18>

<edit>

[Karmadillo]

3. Kick

nt

[Karmadillo]

4. Robert Fisk: Eyewitness report of the carnage at Qana

http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles18.htm

By Robert Fisk - 19th April, 1996
http://www.mideastfacts.com/massacre_Fisk.html

Qana-South Lebanon: the place where the Israeli shells killed 102 people, mostly women and children, taking refuge in a United Nations headquarters on April 18, 1996.

It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world's protection. Like the Muslims of Srebrenica, the Muslims of Qana were wrong.

In front of a burning building of the UN's Fijian battalion headquarters, a girl held a corpse in her arms, the body of a grey- haired man whose eyes were staring at her, and she rocked the corpse back and forth in her arms, keening and weeping and crying the same words over and over: "My father, my father." A Fijian UN soldier stood amid a sea of bodies and, without saying a word, held aloft the body of a headless child.

"The Israelis have just told us they'll stop shelling the area", a UN soldier said, shaking with anger. "Are we supposed to thank them?" In the remains of a burning building - the conference room of the Fijian UN headquarters - a pile of corpses was burning. The roof had crashed in flames onto their bodies, cremating them in front of my eyes. When I walked towards them, I slipped on a human hand...

Israel's slaughter of civilians in this terrible 10-day offensive - 206 by last night - has been so cavalier, so ferocious, that not a Lebanese will forgive this massacre. There had been the ambulance attacked on Saturday, the sisters killed in Yohmor the day before, the 2-year-old girl decapitated by an Israeli missile four days ago. And earlier yesterday, the Israelis had slaughtered a family of 12 - the youngest was a four- day-old baby - when Israeli helicopter pilots fired missiles into their home.

Shortly afterwards, three Israeli jets dropped bombs only 250 metres from a UN convoy on which I was travelling, blasting a house 30 feet into the air in front of my eyes. Travelling back to Beirut to file my report on the Qana massacre to the Independent last night, I found two Israeli gunboats firing at the civilian cars on the river bridge north of Sidon.

more...

[theHandpuppet]

5. K&R

A painful reminder, no lessons learned. :-(

Of course, I've heard numerous reports reminding folks of the death of U.S. Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Violence is not the answer. More death and destruction is not the answer. More war is not the answer.

PEACE!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

6. You said a mouthful

Now if only those who should would just listen.

[Karmadillo]

8. You're making too much sense. Stop it.

nt

[burythehatchet]

7. What if a Muslin had done it?

:shrug: