Posted by
InchDeep on Monday, April 28, 2008 1:20:38 AM
Ah yes the UN looking to avoid conflict hides the activities of Hezbollah terrorists. Nice.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
is intentionally concealing information about Hezbollah activities
south of the Litani River in Lebanon to avoid conflict with the group,
senior sources in Jerusalem have said. In the last six months there
have been at least four cases in which UNIFIL soldiers identified armed
Hezbollah operatives, but did nothing and did not submit full reports
on the incidents to the UN Security Council.
The Israel Defense Forces and the Foreign Ministry are reportedly
very angry about UNIFIL's actions in recent months, especially about
the fact that its commander, Major General Claudio Graziano, is said to
be leniently interpreting his mission, as assigned by Security Council
Resolution 1701, passed at the end of the Second Lebanon War.
Senior IDF officials said recently behind closed doors that
Graziano is "presenting half-truths so as to avoid embarrassment and
conflict with Hezbollah," and that Resolution 1701 has been
increasingly eroded in recent months.
A senior government source in Jerusalem said that,
"There is an attempt by various factors in the UN to mislead the
Security Council and whitewash everything having to do with the
strengthening of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon." The source also said,
"The policy of cover-ups and whitewashing will not last long and,
hopefully, now that the concealing of information has been revealed,
things will change."
Israeli anger reached boiling point over a week ago after the
release of a new report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with regard
to another Lebanon-related Security Council resolution, 1559. The
report briefly mentioned an incident at the beginning of March in which
UNIFIL soldiers encountered unidentified armed men, and included no
additional details. Officials in Israel, familiar with the incident,
reportedly were aware that the Security Council had not been apprised
of numerous details of the incident.
A day after the release of the report, Haaretz revealed that the
incident described in the report had actually been a clash between
UNIFIL and armed Hezbollah activists. The latter, driving a truck full
of explosives, threatened the Italian UNIFIL battalion with weapons.
Instead of using force as required by their mandate, the UN soldiers
abandoned the site. A diplomatic source at the UN told Haaretz that
senior officials in UNIFIL and in the UN Secretariat brought heavy
pressure to bear to have the incident erased from the report or at
least to blur it.
When the incident was made public, UNIFIL was forced to admit that
it had indeed occurred and to request Lebanon's assistance in
investigating it. UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said that during
the incident, which took place near the city of Tyre in southern
Lebanon, five armed men had threatened UNIFIL troops. Bouziane said the
identity of the armed men was uncertain.
A day later, a second report was transmitted to the Security
Council on the matter, this time including all the details. However,
the report stated that this was the first incident of its kind.
According to a security source in Israel, this was a misrepresentation;
he said that in fact there had been many similar incidents in the past.
A response from UNIFIL with regard to Israel's claims was unobtainable.
Haaretz.com