Israel bomb hits UN base in S. Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike destroyed on
Tuesday a base run by a United Nations observer force in
southern Lebanon causing casualties, a U.N. spokesman said.

“One aerial bomb directly impacted the building and shelter
in the base of the United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon in
the area of Khiam,” said Milos Strugar, spokesman for the
UNIFIL peacekeeping force in the area.

“There are casualties among the observers. A UNIFIL
dispatched rescue team which is on the spot is still unable to
clear the rubble.”

Strugar declined to say if anyone was believed to have
died, but it appears that the entire building collapsed while
the U.N. observers were in the shelter below.

“There were 14 other incidents of firing close to this
position in the afternoon from the Israeli side and the firing
continued during the rescue operation,” he said.

An Israeli tank shell hit a UNIFIL position in southern
Lebanon on Monday, wounding four Ghanaian soldiers. Shrapnel
from tank shells fired from the Israeli side seriously wounded
an Indian soldier last week and Hizbollah fire wounded an
Italian observer on the border on Sunday.

In 1996, during Israel’s Grapes of Wrath campaign in
Lebanon, an Israeli jet bombed a UNIFIL compound in the
southern village of Qana, killing 106 civilians sheltering
inside.

UNIFIL was created in 1978 after Israel’s first major
invasion of southern Lebanon and has been there ever since. The
United Nations has called for a bigger, better armed, more
robust international force in the area.