(1) UNITED NATIONS – An Israeli air strike Tuesday killed four United Nations military observers one of them Canadian in what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called an “apparently deliberate” attack.…………..UN officials said the post was clearly marked and that the Israelis were aware of its location. “I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces,” Annan said in an unusually strong statement. “The co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post … occurred despite personal assurances given to me by (Israeli) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire.”
National Defence officials in Ottawa would only say there had been an incident involving an “aerial bombing.” The other dead observers were from Austria, China and Finland. All four were members of of the UN’s Truce Supervision Organization, which since 1948 has been operating throughout the Middle East.
