Israel slams UN request it pay Lebanon for oil spill
Non-binding resolution awards Beirut $850 million for ‘environmental disaster’ caused during 2006 war sparked by Hezbollah
The Israeli mission to the UN criticized the General Assembly’s approval of a resolution late Friday night asking Israel to pay Lebanon over $850 million in damages for an oil spill caused by an Israeli air force attack on oil storage tanks during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in July 2006.
The mission said the decision was typical of the General Assembly and is “part of many other decisions we are used to from the UN.”
“It’s made up of a known recipe of alternative history, manipulation, a large dose of politicization and a narrow view on the part of interest groups,” the Israeli mission said in a statement.
“The UN never bothered to check what the war cost Israel in damages and did not mention that the war broke out in response to the operation by the terror group Hezbollah,” the statement went on.
The assembly voted 170-6 in favor of the nonbinding resolution, with three abstentions. Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia, Micronesia and Marshall Islands voted “no.”
The resolution says “the environmental disaster” caused by the destruction of the tanks resulted in an oil slick that covered the entire Lebanese coastline and extended to the Syrian coastline, causing extensive pollution.
The assembly acknowledged the conclusions in a report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that studies show the value of damage to Lebanon amounted to $856.4 million in 2014.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day conflict in the summer of 2006 sparked by the terrorist’s group cross-border raid in which three soldiers were killed and two were abducted. Five more soldiers died in the attempt to rescue Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev immediately after the attack. Their bodies were later returned in a prisoner exchange deal with Hezbollah.
During the conflict, the Lebanese terror group fired more than 4,000 rockets indiscriminately at Israel’s northern cities. The war claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, as well as some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The Times of Israel Community.