Also see below:     
Four UN Observers Die in Israeli Air Strike as Heavy Fighting Continues in Lebanon    [
Annan: Israel Bombed UN Base for Hours    [

    UN Attack Looks Deliberate: Annan
    Agence France-Presse

    Wednesday 26 July 2006

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan today said he was "shocked" at Israel's "apparently deliberate targeting" of a UN post in Lebanon, in which up to four UN observers were killed.

    Mr Annan described the strike as a "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post."

    He said it took place "despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."

    "Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN Force Commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack.

    "I call on the Government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop.

    "The names and nationalities of those killed are being withheld pending notification of their families. I extend sincere condolences to the families of our fallen peacekeepers."

    Go to Original

    Four UN Observers Die in Israeli Air Strike as Heavy Fighting Continues in Lebanon
    By Donald Macintyre
    The Independent UK

    Wednesday 26 July 2006

    Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.

    The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.

    Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".

    In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.

    Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: "He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."

    Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.

    Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict - killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.

    Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a "security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.

    Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.

    Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".

    Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.

    Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.

    There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops - twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.

    Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" - apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.

    Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.

    The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.

    Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.

    A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were " cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.

    One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.

    The Mounting Toll

• Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
  
  
• A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
  
  
• Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
  
  
• Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
  
  
• Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
  
  
• Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
  
  
• The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
  
  
• That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
  
  
• Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
  
  
• The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
  
  
• Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
  
  
• Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
  
  
• Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
  
  
• The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
  
  
• The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
  
  
• Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540

    Go to Original

    Annan: Israel Bombed UN Base for Hours
    The Guardian UK

    Wednesday 26 July 2006

• UN chief proposes joint investigation
  
• No sign of ceasefire agreement
  
• Aid agencies criticise Blair

    The UN general secretary, Kofi Annan, today accused the Israeli military of carrying out a sustained bombing of the UN base on the Lebanon-Israel border that culminated in the killing of four unarmed monitors.

    Mr Annan said he had suggested to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, that they carry out a joint investigation into the events that led to the shelling of the "well-established and well marked" Unifil (UN interim force in Lebanon) post in the town of Khiyam.

    "I spoke to Mr Olmert and he definitely believes it was a mistake and has expressed his deep sorrow, " Mr Annan told a press conference in Rome.

    "But the shelling started in the morning and went on until after 7pm. You cannot imagine the anguish of the unarmed men and women peacekeepers who were there."

    According to a detailed timeline of the incident provided by an unidentified UN officer and reported by CNN, the first bomb exploded around 200 metres from the post at 1.20pm (11.20am BST) yesterday.

    Unifil observers then telephoned their designated contact with the Israeli military, who assured them the attacks would stop. In the following hours, nine more bombs fell close to the post, each one followed by a call to the Israeli military, the UN officer said.

    The main Unifil base in the town of Naqoura lost contact with the post at 7.40pm, seemingly the time when the post received a direct hit.

    The UN office in Naqoura could not be contacted today.

    The four monitors came from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. The Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, said today he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".

    The 2,000-strong Unifil force, which sits on the Israel-Lebanon border, has suffered dozens of attacks and direct hits in two weeks of conflict. Israel is suspicious of the force and wants it beefed up with an international stabilisation force involving up to 20,000 troops.

    Earlier Mr Olmert telephoned Mr Annan to express his "deep regrets" over the deaths of the UN monitors, the Israeli prime minister's office said.

    Mr Annan said last night the air strike was "apparently deliberate" and other UN officials said the attacks on the UN bunker had continued during a rescue effort. Dan Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, reacted furiously to Mr Annan's comments last night, describing them as "premature and erroneous".

    The deaths of the monitors cast a shadow over today's meeting in Rome, where foreign ministers gathered to discuss the two-week-old Israeli-Lebanese crisis.

    The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, were among the ministers attending the talks in Rome, which ended with no clear indication of when a ceasefire would be achieved.

    Meanwhile, at least nine Israeli soldiers were killed in heavy fighting with Hizbullah guerrillas in south Lebanon today, Arab television stations said.

    Al-Jazeera said nine soldiers were killed in Bint Jbeil, while Al Arabiya television said at least 12 soldiers were killed there.

    Israeli forces encircled the southern Lebanese town yesterday, with one commander describing it as the "capital of Hizbullah". The Israeli army said yesterday that it had killed up to 30 Hizbullah fighters as it aimed to dismantle Hizbullah command posts there and destroy rocket launchers.

    The prime minister was today facing mounting pressure to endorse calls for an immediate ceasefire amid claims that his position and that of the Bush administration were putting civilian lives at risk.

    Aid agencies, religious groups and the public sector union, Unison, wrote an open letter to Tony Blair condemning his refusal to back the UN's demands for a ceasefire.

    The letter - signed by 14 organisations including Amnesty International, Christian Aid and the Muslim Council of Britain - warns that the UK government is diluting calls for peace. "

    By failing to back the UN and call for an immediate ceasefire, the UK government has reduced the impact of international calls for an immediate halt to the violence," the letter says.

    Mr Blair's official spokesman said the prime minister was engaged "almost on an hourly basis" in trying to secure support for a stabilisation force and was ready to take "heat" from critics. The government hoped to secure "broad agreement in principle" in Rome to the idea of a stabilisation force, the spokesman told reporters.

    Israeli warplanes bombed 100 targets in southern Lebanon yesterday and one family of seven civilians was killed. More than 400 Lebanese have been killed in total.

    Hizbullah yesterday fired some 70 rockets into northern Israel, killing a 15-year-old girl. More than 40 Israelis have died in the violence, including 18 who have been killed by rockets.

    This morning, more Hizbullah rockets hit three areas of northern Israel, seriously injuring one person, medics said. The rockets fell in Haifa, Carmiel and Kiryat Bialik, where one person was seriously wounded, the medics said. It was not immediately clear if there were more injuries.

    Meanwhile, a Jordanian military plane landed at Beirut's international airport this morning to evacuate people seriously wounded in the conflict.

    Airport officials said the aircraft was the first jet to land at Beirut's airport since July 13, when Israeli warplanes bombed its runways and forced it to close. Israel said yesterday it would allow planes carrying humanitarian aid to land in Beirut. Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel.