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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Lebanon faults Israel on explosion |
| 2009-07-30 |
| Lebanon accused Israel of trying to preempt an investigation into a recent explosion in a building containing weapons and ammunition by blaming Hezbollah for storing the arms cache in violation of a UN resolution. In letters to the Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon circulated Monday, Lebanon's charge d'affaires Caroline Ziade said the Lebanese Army has concluded that the weapons and munitions were left over from the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in the summer of 2006. That's because they included 100mm Israeli tank shells with Hebrew writing and ammunition for 130mm artillery, which Hezbollah does not possess but which was used by a Lebanese militia that collaborated with Israel prior to its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, she said. All weapons and munitions at the site were also "of types used during the July 2006 war." Ziade said Israel's allegation that Hezbollah was putting civilians at risk by storing weapons in residential areas "is intended to justify intentional targeting of Lebanese civilians by Israel in the future." She said a joint investigation by the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL began two days after the July 14 explosion in the village of Khirbat Silm in southern Lebanon because explosives experts from the two bodies determined the site was not safe to approach the following day. "That refutes false Israeli allegations that the Lebanese Army deliberately delayed the deployment of UNIFIL at the explosion site and the start of the investigation," she said. Lebanese Army officers in the investigating commission determined that the building where the explosion took place contained a variety of munitions and weapons "and that the cause of the explosion had been a fire that broke out in the unfinished non-residential building," Ziade said. "In view of the close cooperation between the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL in investigating the cause of the explosion, Israel has attempted to pre-empt the results of the investigation by leveling accusations of arms smuggling in the force's area of operations south of the Litani River," she said. "Those accusations are false and a blatant attempt to interfere with the investigation in order to influence its conclusions," she said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mulling seeking the re-activation of an armistice commission with Lebanon in order to talk to its northern neigh our with which it remains technically at war, a report said on Wednesday. |
| Posted by:Fred |