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ROME, July 26: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday said he was ‘shocked’ at Israel’s ‘apparently deliberate targeting’ of a UN post in Lebanon, in which four UN observers were killed.
Israel’s UN ambassador said he was ‘shocked’ by Mr Annan’s accusation.
“I was shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement by the secretary general insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post at Khiam and surprised at these premature and erroneous assertions,” Ambassador Dan Gillerman told BBC World Service.
Mr Annan, in a statement issued here on the eve of the international conference on the Lebanon crisis, described the strike on the border town of Khiam as a ‘coordinated 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 (Israeli) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire’.
“Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN Force Commander in southern 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.”
The hilltop town of Khiam, close to the Israeli border, sheltered an infamous prison during Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon to 2000 but is now a Hezbollah stronghold.
Mr Annan earlier was seen quickly leaving the Rome hotel hosting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the eve of the crucial conference.
Pursued by his security detail, he told reporters he was leaving to find out more information about the incident.
French ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, president of the Security Council for July, said: “We condemn this bombing on a UNIFIL position.”
“As president of the council I can say that we support UNIFIL. We support the soldiers,” the French envoy added.
ASEAN FMS: Foreign ministers from China, Japan, South Korea and the 10-nation ASEAN bloc expressed their deep concern over Israel’s ‘apparently deliberate targeting’ of a UN post in Lebanon.
Regional ministers, in Kuala Lumpur for Asia’s top security forum on Friday, have said they will raise the issue with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will also attend.
“The ministers were deeply shocked and distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by the Israeli Defence Forces of the United Nations Observer post in southern Lebanon,” they said in a statement.
“The ministers condemned this coordinated attack,” they said, and extended their condolences to the families and governments of the dead, who came from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
They called on the Israeli government to conduct an investigation into the “very disturbing incident” and demanded it not launch any further attacks on UN positions and personnel.
The ministers said they were gravely concerned over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, particularly Israel’s “disproportionate, indiscriminate and excessive use of force.”—AFP
