A United Nations team blamed the Israel Defense Forces on Friday for its inconclusive report on an Israel Air Force air strike that hit a UN outpost in southern Lebanon, killing four UN soldiers.

The report determined that a 500-kilogram, precision-guided missile hit the UN post on July 26 near the southern Lebanon village of Al-Hayam.

Israel said the bombing of the post along the Israeli-Lebanese border was a mistake that occurred at the "operational level." But the panel investigating the attack was not allowed to interview commanders at that level to determine what happened, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

	Advertisement

Because of Israel's refusal, the inquiry was "unable to determine why the
attacks on the UN position were not halted despite repeated demarches to the Israeli authorities from UN personnel, both in the field and at headquarters," Dujarric said.

Around two weeks ago, Israel issued a report to the UN, saying that the accidental attack on the UN post could have been the result of incorrectly marked IDF maps.

After investigating the soldiers' deaths in the air strike, the Israeli government presented the report to diplomats and military attaches from the officers' countries of origin - Finland, Austria, China and Canada. The report was presented to the UN at the beginning of the week.

After the attack, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke with UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan to express his condolences and vowed to investigate the event and report back to Annan on the results of the probe.

The Israeli report two weeks ago gave a lengthy description of Hezbollah's operations in southern Lebanon, and said the air strike was meant to hit a Hezbollah stronghold 180 meters from the UN outpost at Al-Hayam.

In the days before he was killed, the Canadian officer who was killed wrote that IDF tank shells had fallen only two meters away from the UN troops, but that the shelling was justified due to Israel's tactical needs in the area.

In the aftermath of the event, some had interpreted the Canadian officer's testimony as verification of Israeli claims that Hezbollah guerrillas had been firing Katyusha rockets from the area. The UN said it had complained about the shelling, but that the IDF had not called off its fire.

After the four officers were killed, Annan accused Israel of attacking the UN post on purpose, saying that he was shocked and disturbed by the strike. Israel was furious at the accusation, and the UN chief later retracted his statement.

The UN chief had also said after the attack that the outpost had been set up a long time before and was well marked.