Widow of Canadian soldier killed by IDF says government protecting Israel

JTA — The widow of a Canadian soldier killed by Israeli forces says the country’s Defense Department removed a report of his killing from its website in an effort to shield Israel.

Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three other United Nations observers were killed in 2006 when Israel’s military shelled their outpost in southern Lebanon during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

Hess-von Kruedener’s widow, Cynthia, says that the report was removed because of reluctance on the part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to criticize Israel, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

The 67-page report was posted the Canadian Defense Department’s website in 2008 and removed a year later. The report blamed Israel’s military for the observers’ deaths.

The Defense Department told the newspaper that it removed the report for security reasons “after it was discovered that some of its content is considered protected information.”

Legion magazine, an Ottawa-based publication sent to members of the Royal Canadian Legion, recently obtained a copy of the report and posted it on its website.

The report said that the outpost appeared on an Israeli targeting list, which Israel later acknowledged was a mistake.