Sunday, February 3, 2008

Israel Defence Force Responsible for Peacekeeper's death.

This is from canada.com Note that the Israeli Defence Force did not fully co-operate with the investigation and there is also no answer to the question as to why the Israelis continued their attacks when they knew full well there were UN personnel in the area. Could it be that they did not like them being there and wanted to send a message? It worked. We will not hear a peep from our politicians about this I expect.


Peacekeeper's death fault of Israeli military: report
Meagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News ServicePublished: Friday, February 01, 2008
OTTAWA - The death of a Canadian peacekeeper in Lebanon in 2006 was preventable and the fault of the Israeli military, a Canadian military inquiry has concluded.
In a report released Friday, the board of inquiry into the death of Major Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener said it found no evidence that anyone from the United Nations or Canadian Forces should shoulder any of the blame - that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) as a whole is responsible.
The board said it could not assign blame to any one individual for the aerial attack that destroyed the UN outpost where Hess-von Kruedener was stationed.

The casket of Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener is carried by pallbearers at a memorial service in Kingston, Ont., in 2006.

The 43-year-old soldier from Kingston, Ont., and three other peacekeepers under UN command died in the bombing on the night of July 25. Fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces had broken out earlier in the month and the UN post, located about 10 kilometres from the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders, was right in the thick of it.
The 66-page report lays out in detail the circumstances around the fatal attack on Patrol Base Khiam in southern Lebanon and makes several recommendations on how a similar incident could be prevented.
"Taking into consideration all factors present at the time of the incident and the actions of all individuals, I fully support the board's conclusion that no blame can be assigned to any one individual," said Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, Commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, in a statement. "The Israeli Defense Force has taken full responsibility for the operational and tactical errors which led to the bombing of PB Khiam, although without naming any individual as being personally culpable."
The report notes that the IDF did not fully co-operate with the Canadian inquiry and denied access to documents and people involved in the event. It suggests that if the board had the access it requested, it might have been able to assign blame to an individual within the IDF.
The board also couldn't resolve the unanswered question of why Israeli air force jets continued their attacks despite warnings that UN personnel were in the area.

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