Controversy still rages over the deaths of four U.N. observers killed in southern Lebanon. A timeline of the strike.
July 27, 2006 - Were the four United Nations observers killed by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday deliberately targeted—or were their deaths accidental?
So far, an answer is elusive. In his immediate reaction, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the attack as "apparently deliberate" and called for a joint Israeli-U.N. investigation. Israeli officials said they would conduct their own inquiry, the results of which will be released when complete.
"At the end of the day, everything we know, you will know," Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dan Gillerman told reporters at a press conference in New York on Thursday. Gillerman went on to accuse Annan of "getting his facts wrong" and labeled the allegations "totally false." "In war, accidents happen," Gillerman said. To suggest otherwise is "ludicrous," he added, suggesting that for Israel the incident was among the "worst things that could have happened." Gillerman also noted that Hizbullah sometimes established positions "within inches" of U.N. posts.
U.N. officials stand by their claim, at least for now. One Annan aide laid out for NEWSWEEK a disturbing chronology of events. U.N. observers reported that fighter-delivered aerial bombs and artillery shells began falling around their compound early Tuesday afternoon. The first, an aerial bomb, fell roughly 200 meters away at 1:20 p.m., or 1320 by the U.N. mission's military-style timekeeping.
Another hit at 1324. Yet another five minutes later at 1329 and still another at 1335. Two more struck at 1428 as the barrage continued, with bombs landing near the compound at 1436, 1442, 1451, 1632 and 1829. Also at 1829—6:29 p.m.—the U.N. official says, four artillery shells struck within the U.N. compound's perimeter. Three more landed within 100 meters at 1916. At 1930—six hours after the barrage began—the fatal aerial bomb, released from an Israeli jet, struck the post and killed the four U.N. observers—Canadian, Austrian, Finnish and Chinese.
Over that six-hour period, U.N. officials say they made at least a dozen phone calls to Israeli commanders. Early on, Annan himself called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protest and was personally assured, the secretary-general said in a statement, that "U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire."
Senior U.N. officials also placed calls to Gillerman and his deputy at the Israeli Mission in New York, while in southern Lebanon the commander of the U.N. force, Alain Pellegrini, made 10 calls to his counterpart, the head of the Israeli Defense Force's Northern Command. "Pellegrini repeatedly asked them to stop. ‘Shells are falling on our position,' he told them," according to Annan's aide. "We gave them the precise coordinates" where the U.N. personnel were located. Each time, in Lebanon as well as in New York, they were given assurances that the U.N. post would not be struck, Annan's aide told NEWSWEEK.
But it was hit, and the question is why. On Wednesday, Olmert offered Annan his apologies and told the secretary-general that the attack had been an accident. Annan accepted the apology but has not retracted his earlier condemnation, his aide says, intending instead to await the results of an investigation.
Late Thursday, according to a U.N. source, the IDF explained that an artillery gunner had mistakenly programmed the U.N. post's coordinates into his weapon's firing instructions. Whether or not that turns out to be true, the account immediately raised questions. Accident or not, it only adds to Israel's public-relations nightmare.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
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