UN: Hezbollah responsible for death of French observer
By The Associated Press
A United Nations official said Monday that Hezbollah bears primary responsibility for the death of a French UN observer on the Israel-Lebanon border, killed in heavy exchanges of fire Sunday between the Lebanon-based militant group and Israel Defense Forces soldiers.
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The firefight began after an IDF officer was killed when his armored jeep hit an explosive device during a routine patrol in the Har Dov region of the northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack.
Sources in Lebanon said the French observer was killed by IDF tank fire. But UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative for South Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, said after meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud that the UN "can not forget that the event began with [a Hezbollah] attack across the border."
De Mistura added that the UN is "very concerned by what happened at the border and the Hezbollah attack across the border," and called on both sides to show restraint.
"We are asking all sides to contain their actions and to control their actions on the ground," said de Mistura.
"We are in a very delicate period not only in the history of Lebanon but of the region. The whole region is going through a difficult moment," de Mistura said. "This is the time to maintain calm. This is the time not to go into escalation."
The Lebanese president justified the Hezbollah action, calling it a "response to continued Israeli aggression," while Hezbollah sources said that the Sunday's attack was part of its effort to "liberate occupied Lebanese territory in Shabaa Farms."
Lebanon claims as its own the Har Dov area, known in Lebanon as Shabaa Farms. The UN, however, says that the area is part of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The UN also called for restraint following Sunday's border clashes.
In New York, Annan "condemned the military escalation" and underlined the responsibility of all sides to safeguard UN personnel.
"He urges Israel and Lebanon to exercise maximum restraint and not further jeopardize the relative quiet that has characterized the Blue Line [border] for the past six months," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
"We are asking all sides to contain their actions and to control their actions on the ground," said Dujarric, Annan's special representative for South Lebanon.
"We are in a very delicate period not only in the history of Lebanon but of the region. The whole region is going through a difficult moment. This is the time to maintain calm. This is the time not to go into escalation," de Mistura said.
De Mistura made the remarks following a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud to discuss the developments that followed a roadside bomb planted by Hezbollah guerrillas exploded, destroying an Israeli army vehicle, killing an Israel officer and wounding three others in the Shebaa Farms area.
In retaliation, Israel launched four air strikes and shelled Hezbollah positions, killing a militiaman and wounding another.
A UN patrol car was hit by an Israeli tank shell, killing the French truce monitor and wounding of a Swedish officer and a Lebanese man.
The French Defense Ministry in Paris identified the dead officer as Maj. Jean Louis Valet, who was serving with UN Observer Group Lebanon, a UN unit that that monitors the 1948 armistice between Lebanon and Israel.
Nearly 300 UN peacekeepers have died in the region, most of them since an armed peacekeeping force was deployed to the border region in 1978.
A senior Israel military officer who investigated the incident acknowledged Monday that the death of the French peacekeeper "apparently is the result of our tanks fire."
"My impression is that there was no way of knowing that these were UN soldiers," he told The Associated Press in Jerusalem.
"They were in uniform but had no identifying signs to show that they were from the UN and were very close to the to the area where the incident occurred."
However, Lebanese security officials said Monday that the UN soldiers were on a routine patrol along the Blue Line when the Israelis opened fire on them.
"They were in a clearly marked white UN patrol vehicle flying the UN flag. The wore their (blue) helmets," said the security officials speaking on the customary condition of anonymity.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud sent a cable to French President Jacques
Chirac and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan expressing his "deep pain" over the peacekeeper's death, according to Lahoud's office
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