The bottom line of this report is that a nation is not allowed to defend by lethal force, a provacative violation of its border. Wasn’t this violation an invasion? But of course they only say this about Israel.
I stand by Israel doing what it did. It is important to draw a hard line so as not to encourage a repeat of the provocation. And is it so clear that the people who died were killed by Israeli gunfire rather than Lebanese gunfire. Were balistics done on the lethal bullets? Ted Belman
JERUSALEM — A new United Nations report that has been distributed to members of the Security Council strongly criticizes Israel for using live fire against unarmed demonstrators who tried in May to breach its border fence from Lebanon. Israel is planning to respond in detail shortly in a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, officials here said Thursday.
The United Nations has been a frequent battleground for Israel, whose diplomats are currently working to oppose a bid by the Palestinians for international recognition of statehood at the Security Council and the General Assembly this fall.
The report states that Israel first issued verbal warnings and fired into the air before directing live fire at the mostly Palestinian protesters, killing seven civilians and injuring 111. But other than firing in the air, it says, Israel did not employ “conventional crowd control methods or any other method than lethal weapons against the demonstrators.”
More broadly, the report deals with violations of Security Council Resolution 1701, which underpinned the cease-fire in the summer of 2006 that ended a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization.
Israel violated the resolution during the events on the border on May 15, the report says, noting the lethal force used by Israel was not commensurate to the imminent threat to Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The protesters also violated the resolution, it says, because of their provocative actions, including when about 1,000 of them broke off from the main demonstration and “threw stones and two petrol bombs across the fence and attempted to climb it and bring it down.”
Up to 10,000 demonstrators arrived at the border area on May 15, which Palestinians have come to refer to as Nakba Day, marking the founding of Israel in 1948. Nakba means catastrophe. The protests were organized by Palestinian and Lebanese organizations, including Hezbollah.
Israeli officials have hinted anonymously that some of the casualties were caused by Lebanese Army soldiers who also opened fire. The United Nations report does not attribute any of the deaths to the Lebanese forces in the border area, saying the Lebanese Army attempted to control the crowd “using batons, tear gas and heavy firing in the air.”
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, said Thursday that the Lebanese forces used live fire, but that it was impossible for Israel to determine the number or source of the casualties since the bodies were all on the Lebanese side of the fence.
A senior Israeli military official said Wednesday that since the May 15 border confrontation, and a subsequent deadly confrontation on June 5 along the frontier between Syria and the disputed, Israeli-held Golan Heights, Israeli forces had been provided with more nonlethal equipment in order to reduce fatalities in any future episodes of this kind.
The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity in line with army rules, added that Israel was sorry for the loss of life.
Activists in Lebanon canceled plans to march to Israel’s northern border again on June 5, on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war, after Lebanese authorities declared the area a closed military zone.
Israeli anger over the new United Nations report seemed mostly directed against its author, Michael Williams, the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon.
An Israeli official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said that Israel would not boycott Mr. Williams, who periodically visits here to meet with officials, but that Israel had decided “to take some distance from him for a while.”
Tensions between Israel and Mr. Williams have been running high since May. Soon after the Nakba Day events, Mr. Williams was quoted during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon, as saying that he was “shocked by the number of the deaths and the use of disproportionate, deadly force” by Israeli soldiers against “apparently unarmed demonstrators.”
Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said at the time that the “overhasty statements” by Mr. Williams were “aggravating.” He added that Mr. Williams “would have been better advised to wait for the results of investigations conducted by Unifil,” the peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
The new report was based on the findings of Unifil’s investigation.
Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from New York.
Many nations at the UN have cowtowed to Arab and Muslim interests since its inception….Their reliance on Middle East OIL rears its ugly head and promulgates their anti-Israel policy. When the world develops and relies on alternative energy sources, the Arab hold on the world will disappear~
I agree the un can go to hell
I would not read the report at all, I would spit on the report and tear it up throw it also on the floor and stomp on it and tell the haters of Israel to ram it and kiss my rear end, then I would salute Israel and the Jewish people just to piss off the arabs and the haters of Israel
It is beyond me why the US government even allows the un to be located in the USA, we ought to throw the un out of the USA, as 4 the report critisizing Israel right in the security i would hspit on the report tear it up and throw at the nations that are anti Israel and tell those nations that are anti Israel to kiss my blank blank
UN: go the hell.
Supporters of UN and enemies who proevent the US of gaining energy independence,and thus provide the funding of radical Islam, go to hell with the UN
DEFINITION, “DISPORPORTIONATE”
Words have meanings-consequences. When we mis-use the language by attributing new fallacious meanings to words, we rapidly veer into the world of Geoge Orwell’s “Newspeak.”
Example; the word “disproportionate.” Formerly this meant a huge overreaction, swatting flies with hand grenades etc. Now it has a new “Newspeak” meaning created by the left and so often used in the leftist New York Times.
New definition; “disproportionate.” Any action by Isreal to defend itself from attacks short of an armored invasion.
Thus when Islamic “freedom fighters” (terrorists) in the “Palistianain territories” lob rockets into Iseaeli towns to kill indiscriminately, soldiers, women, children, old people, it is “disproportionate” for the IDF to target artillery, hellicopter gunships, or bombs at those FIRING the rockets. Since the latter bravely hide among civilian non-combatants, naturally there are likeley to be unwanted casualties. THESE will get front page treatment by US and world newsmedia while the rocket attacks on Isreal will be largely ignored or treated is a sort of “boys will be boys” manner, viewing Arabs as the intellectual petulant children they really are.
God forbid if, in chasing down terrorist thugs, the IDF actually sends in ground troops; largely eliminating the civilian “collateral” casualties. THIS is treated as an ACT of AGRESSION and taken to the idiot United Nations where Obama’s representative sits passively by as flannel mouthed third world thugs denounce the Jewish state. One wonders if “our” representative at the “world body” would even use our veto power should anti-Isreal actions be proposed. In the Obama-Clinton world no US ally can count on our support.
There are only TWO answers to such “newspeak” nonsense.
1. IGNORE “world opinion,” the UN, and the leftist media. Do what is necessary for Isreal’s defense whatever the hue and cry raised by left wing idiots OR the Obama regime.
2. DEFEAT Obama in the next election! Another correspondent noted that any good American much less American Jews should NEVER vote for the first anti-American Marxist president in our history. Very true! But a Jew who supports, contributes, or votes for this administration is also a candidate for pschiatric confinement.