Friends of Lebanon News Editorial

Qana: the Lesson Unlearned

On 18 April 1996, Israeli Forces shelled the compound of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the village of Qana, Southern Lebanon. Over 100 people were killed, with many more, including four UN soldiers, wounded. Those who survived would never be the same.

Israel’s attack on Lebanon code-named "Operation Grapes of Wrath" lasted a mere 16 days, April 11 to 27, 1996. During this time, Israeli pilots carried out at least 600 air raids, firing 25,000 shells into Lebanon. 154 Lebanese civilians were killed, with another 351 injured. (There were no Israeli deaths, with a reported 3 injuries.)

What makes Qana so significant is the wilful rage against civilian families seeking safe haven within the protective arms of the United Nations. Fuelled by hatred and arrogance, Israel sneered at the UN and fired on their target. In his article “Anatomy of a Tragedy,” James Walsh reports that UN personnel on the ground in Lebanon had emphasized that “the shelling, which by their log lasted from 2:08 to 2:25 p.m., continued for at least 10 minutes after they had explicitly, urgently notified Israel that a U.N. base crammed with civilian refugees was under attack. Three neighboring U.N. posts fired red warning flares. ‘We made the effort to make them stop,’ says Lieut. Colonel Wame Waqanivavalagi, commander of the Fijian battalion. ‘But they kept firing.’” (http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960520/qana.html)

The Israeli response to the public outcry was that it had all been a mistake. But the official UN report is clear: “it is unlikely that gross technical and/or procedural errors led to the shelling of the United Nations compound.” Major-General Franklin Van Kappen, Military Adviser to the UN, gave Israel the chance to explain discrepancies between his findings and their version of what had happened. Their answers failed to dissuade his conclusion: in his addendum to the report, he reiterated the exact same finding. Van Kappen later stated, "I've heard that some Israelis think this is an anti-Jewish vendetta," he said. "My wife is Jewish. I'm not anti-Israeli. When I went there, I believed the Israeli army--a few shells had just overshot." Yet after 10 minutes of standing on a roof in Qana, he said, "I knew I was in deep s---. This was not a simple overshoot. Seventeen shells landed." (Walsh, “Anatomy of a Tragedy.”) (full UN report at http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/62d5aa740c14293b85256324005179be?OpenDocument)

Amnesty International, on its own research, concluded that the attack was knowing and deliberate. Amnesty states, “the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound. . . . the bombardment of the UN compound was not the result of an artillery scatter of stray shells which overshot the Hizbullah mortar, as claimed by the IDF, but was the result of a separate barrage of shells aimed at the compound itself.” They further conclude that “Amnesty International cannot establish with certainty whether or not the relevant IDF personnel knew that over 800 Lebanese civilians were sheltering in the UN compound at the time it was attacked. However, even if the IDF did not have specific information regarding civilians sheltering there, the general information it did possess concerning civilians in UN compounds -- in addition to Israel’s recognition that UN positions as such are not legitimate targets -- should have been sufficient to prevent such an attack. The fact that the attack proceeded can only indicate a callous disregard for the protection of civilian lives and therefore a clear breach of the laws of wars prohibitions on directly or indiscriminately targeting civilians.” (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE150421996)

Human Rights Watch met the same conclusion: “the absence of precautions prior to the attack in close proximity to the town of Qana and the U.N. base located there, as well as the means and methods of attack chosen by the IDF (a sustained artillery barrage without lines of sight to the target), put Israel in violation of international humanitarian law.” Human Rights Watch noted that Qana was in line with a pattern of Israeli behaviour—an “appalling willingness to conduct military operations in which civilians would bear the brunt of the suffering.” (http://hrw.org/reports/1997/isrleb/Isrleb.htm)

Too horrendous to believe? Robert Fisk, British journalist for the Independent, reported his eyewitness account. He wrote “The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world's protection.” (http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles18.htm)

Perhaps equally disturbing in its way, was the video film footage that would soon complete the story. A UN soldier happened to be filming home video and captured Israeli spotter aircraft verifying the target. “Here at last,” said Fisk, “in living colour, was the proof: distinct pictures of the small Israeli aircraft over Qana, the plane that the Israelis—for two weeks—claimed was never there.” Fisk notes that “Shortly afterwards, the sound-track picks up the familiar buzzing sound of the Israeli "drone," final and irrefutable evidence that later Israeli denials were false.” One UN officer who saw the tape stated "I and many others have risked our lives under constant Israeli shelling. We put up with their lies and the arrogance of their explanations. . . . But even if it means the end of my military career, I'll never say this was an accident. The Israelis knew they were firing at innocent people." (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/quana_01_19_03.htm)

This film can be seen at http://tyros.leb.net/qana/qana.ram.

Additional film of the tragedy at Qana can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asL_ouHnYWs and

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8391703044736255896.

In honour of those who died and of those who suffered beyond what we dare imagine, Friends of Lebanon remembers the victims of the Qana Massacre, 18 April 1996.