Spanish report claims Israel targeted UN in Lebanon

Probe said to accuse IDF of aiming at peacekeepers’ base in January, killing Spanish soldier, after deadly Hezbollah attack; Israel has stressed UN was not target

A confidential Spanish military report on the death of a Spanish UN peacekeeper in Israeli shelling in Lebanon said he was manning a post that appeared to have been targeted, a newspaper reported Sunday.

El Pais cited extracts from the report which drew on testimony from soldiers following the January 28 incident when the Israeli military shelled border areas following a Hezbollah attack on an IDF convoy in the Golan Heights. The Hezbollah fired killed two Israeli soldiers, Staff Sergeant Dor Chaim Nini and Major Yochai Kalangel of the Givati Brigade, and injured seven others.

Corporal Ivan Lopez Sanchez, who was stationed nearby, told investigators that the UN position was clearly targeted.

“Every time, they corrected the trajectory from Majidiye to the 4-28” post, where the UNIFIL peacekeepers were stationed, he said.

Israeli military vehicles are seen burning following a Hezbollah missile strike across the border on January 28, 2015. Two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack. (photo credit: AFP/MARUF KHATIB)

Spain and Israel have agreed to carry out a joint probe into the death of 36-year-old corporal Javier Soria Toledo.

Israel has stated repeatedly that the shelling of the UN position was accidental.

Another Spanish soldier, Sergeant Julio Xavier Garcia, echoed Sanchez, saying the shells initially fell about 500 meters (yards) north of the UN post and then they “corrected the trajectory towards the position.”

Honor guard carrying the flag-draped casket of departed Spanish peacekeeper, Lance Corporal Toledo, departs the memorial service held at the Beirut International Airport, on January 29, 2015. (photo credit: Courtesy UNIFIL)

A third soldier said fragmentation bombs were used in the attack and that the shelling finally appeared to target the main watch tower.

El Pais quoted a UN report which said that Israel had warned the UN peacekeepers at 11:40 am not to venture out, without giving any explanation.

Between 11:48 am and 1:43 pm, nearly 120 artillery shells, 90 mortar grenades and five projectiles were fired in the area, El Pais quoted the report as saying.

The 10,000-strong United Nations Interim Force Lebanon (UNIFIL) includes some 600 Spanish soldiers and troops from 35 other nations.

In February, a Lebanese newspaper accused the IDF of implementing a controversial procedure involving mass shelling against positions throughout southern Lebanon in an effort to prevent the capture of soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the January 28 attack.

The IDF denied the report, insisting the death of the UN Peacekeeper was entirely accidental.