Shelling of UN Compound
By 14 April, 745 people were occupying the United Nations compound at Qana. More than 800 were there on April 18. Beginning with the second day of combat Israel had been retaliating within 10 minutes directly at any source of fire discovered by reconnaissance. This tactic was widely discussed in Israeli media, and well known to the Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese citizens. According to a U.N. report, on April 18, Hezbollah fighters fired two or three Katyusha rockets and between five and eight mortars at Israeli soldiers near the Red Line (the northern limits of the "security zone") from positions about 220 meters southwest and 350 meters southeast of the United Nations compound. 15 minutes later, at 2:08 PM, an Israeli unit responded by shelling the area with M-109A2 155 mm guns. According to the Israeli military, 38 shells were fired, two-thirds of them equipped with proximity fuses, an anti-personnel mechanism that causes the weapon to explode above the ground.
As a result of the shelling, 106 civilians died, with more wounded.
A video recording made by a UNIFIL soldier of Force Mobile Reserve (FMR) showed an unmanned drone and two helicopters in the vicinity at the time of the shelling. An Israeli government spokesman confirmed there was a drone in the area, but stated that it did not detect civilians in the compound. The IDF initially and repeatedly claimed that no drone was flying in the area before or during the shelling. The truth only emerged when the UNIFIL soldier secretly delivered the tape to Beirut-based journalist Robert Fisk. Fisk sent the video to his newspaper, The Independent, which published stills of the footage in an article that appeared on May 6.
Read more about this topic: 1996 Shelling Of Qana
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