Articles
Israeli economy minister Naftali Bennett is embroiled in
controversy over his role in the April 1996 massacre of more
than one hundred civilians and UN peacekeepers at a UN base
in the village of Qana during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon
that year.
Israeli news outlet Yediot Ahronot columnist Yigal Sarna
wrote an article bringing up the role of Bennett, leader of
the extreme anti-Palestinian party Habeyit Hayehudi (Jewish
Home), as a young officer in an elite unit in Lebanon.
Bennett was the commander of a company that encountered
stiff resistance from Hizballah forces near the village of
Qana.
Here’s how Israeli daily Haaretz summarized the controversy
sparked by Sarna’s column:
The column described Bennett as having had utter contempt
for his superiors and what he considered their hesitant
conduct. Sarna claimed Bennett eventually decided,
independently, to alter the operational plan. But when he
subsequently encountered Hizballah fire, Bennett called for
help, and the ensuing artillery barrage accidentally killed
the Lebanese civilians.
Haaretz quotes Israel’s Channel 10 journalist Raviv Drucker
piling on the criticism: “A senior army officer well-versed
in the 1996 [Qana] probe told me some time ago, ‘On the
communications network, the young officer, Bennett, sounded
hysterical, and his pressure contributed more than a little
to the terrible error.’”
Note how Haaretz – and Drucker – characterize the shelling
in passing as “accidental” or a “terrible error.” At worst,
Bennett and the other Israelis involved look reckless and
incompetent.
That is bad enough, but in fact the evidence at the time
pointed to the massacre – more than half the dead were
children – being anything but an “accident.”
“I have killed lots of Arabs”
Bennett has never denied being a violent man. In fact he’s
proud of it. “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and
there is no problem with that,” he notoriously declared in
2013.
And, according to Israel expert Dena Shunra, the media
debate doesn’t revolve around the morality or criminality of
the killings, but rather centers on Bennett’s “fitness” to
lead – he hopes one day to be prime minister and Israel has
an election coming up in March.
“The question raging around the Israeli press at the moment
is whether the shelling of the UNIFIL base,” the UN force in
Lebanon, “was Bennett’s fault, done at his order, or done
because he sounded panicky over the radio,” Shunra told The
Electronic Intifada.
“There is a strong undercurrent of ‘let’s not discuss it
during elections’ and of ‘what he did when he was twenty-two
is irrelevant to the kind of prime minister he might be,’”
Shunra added.
Bennett has hit back at his critics, saying, “I am proud of
how I functioned during Operation Grapes of Wrath [the
Israeli name for the assault], leave the warriors alone.”
Shunra sees Bennett capitalizing on concerns that asking too
many questions about what Israeli soldiers do will only lend
support to present-day calls for soldiers who took part in
“Operation Protective Edge,” Israel’s massacre in Gaza last
summer, to be tried.
“I must say that I do not understand what interest of any
Israeli, of any Jew, it serves to invest the best part of
his time, effort, and sharpened pen to sully the name of the
bravest soldiers in the world, with the camaraderie value
being unlike any in the world,” Bennett said.
Effort to suppress UN report
The most thorough report on what happened at Qana was
written by Dutch artillery expert Major-General Franklin van
Kappen, a military advisor to then UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Boutros-Ghali published and sent the report to the UN
Security Council, defying pressure from the United States.
This is widely believed to be the reason why the Clinton
administration did not back Boutros-Ghali for a customary
second term as the head of the world body.
It is clear from the report why Israel and the US wanted it
suppressed. In his introductory letter, Boutros-Ghali
states: “As indicated in the report, while the possibility
cannot be ruled out completely, the pattern of impacts in
the Qana area makes it unlikely that the shelling of the
United Nations compound was the result of technical and/or
procedural errors.”
What happened?
On 11 April 1996, Israel began a massive bombardment of
Lebanon and a blockade of its ports in an effort to end
resistance by Hizballah and other groups against its
occupation of southern Lebanon that had begun in 1978. This
was followed by a ground invasion and broadcast warnings to
residents that they should flee their homes.
The Israeli attack drove hundreds of thousands of Lebanese
civilians and Palestinian refugees from their homes and
camps. By 14 April, more than eight hundred displaced
persons had taken refuge in the UN base at Qana manned by a
battalion of Fijian troops.
On 18 April, Hizballah resistance fighters fired mortars
toward invading Israeli forces, evidently including
Bennett’s unit, from two positions each several hundred
meters from the UN base.
Van Kappen’s report states: “At some point (it is not
completely clear whether before or after the shelling), two
or three Hizballah fighters entered the United Nations
compound, where their families were.”
There is no allegation or finding, not even from Israel,
that there was any firing from the UN base itself.
“Rescue fire”
The Israelis told van Kappen that on the afternoon of 18
April, “an Israeli patrol had come under fire emanating from
Qana.” Under attack, the Israeli unit “requested assistance”
and so the artillery had “initiated rescue fire procedures.”
Their first target was located 200 meters or so southwest of
the United Nations compound, the Israelis told van Kappen.
Because it was so close to a UN base, “officers of some
seniority had been involved” in the decision to use
artillery in the area.
The second target “was located some 350 meters southeast of
the compound.”
Claiming that their maps were slightly inaccurate, the
Israelis said they fired 38 high explosive 155mm artillery
shells toward the first target and “[r]egrettably, a few
rounds had overshot and hit the United Nations compound.”
“The Israeli officers stated that the Israeli forces were
not aware at the time of the shelling that a large number of
Lebanese civilians had taken refuge in the Qana compound,”
van Kappen writes, “I did not pursue this question since I
considered it irrelevant because the United Nations compound
was not a legitimate target, whether or not civilians were
in it.”
The attack on the compound was devastating. The UN report
states that “there was substantial evidence of multiple
proximity-fused artillery ammunition detonating directly
above the compound, covering a large portion of its area.”
“In sum, evidence was found of 13 detonations inside or
directly above the compound and four very close to it,” the
report states.
Van Kappen found another concentration of impacts about 100
meters south of the UN base, on a group of houses some 75
meters northwest of the mortar firing point.
The commanding officer of the artillery battalion,
interviewed by van Kappen, “had no satisfactory explanation
why so many shells had fallen some 200 meters north of the
intended target.”
“Asked if he had shifted fire during the shelling, he said
he had not,” the report states.
Van Kappen writes that “despite an extensive aerial and
ground search, no impacts were found at the second target
area identified by the Israeli forces.”
False Israeli claims
Van Kappen’s investigation collected physical evidence and
testimonies which led him to conclude that the Israeli
account of what happened was improbable or outright false in
key respects.
The Israelis later admitted to providing some false
information after van Kappen presented them with his
findings.
Van Kappen says in an addendum to the report that he was
visited at UN headquarters in New York by Israeli ambassador
David Peleg and Brigadier-General Dan Harel, director of
artillery for the Israeli army.
Harel “explained that, in their eagerness to cooperate with
the United Nations, the Israeli forces had given me
information during my visit before their own investigation
was completed,” van Kappen writes.
Anyone who knows Israel’s history of contempt for and
obstruction of UN investigations would immediately smell a
rat at Harel’s claim that Israel was “eager” to cooperate.
The Israelis were forced to admit that despite their earlier
categorical denials, there had been Israeli unmanned
aircraft and helicopters flying in the vicinity of the UN
camp as witnesses had contended and video proved – meaning
that the Israelis could have observed what was happening on
the ground.
They also admitted they had used far more artillery shells
with proximity fuses than they had at first claimed. This
was important because shells with proximity fuses, rather
than impact fuses, explode before they hit the ground,
showering a far wider area with lethal shrapnel.
Harel also admitted that the artillery “had missed the
second target completely” but “could not explain why the
[artillery] missed its target.”
But as Van Kappen notes, the “corrections” provided by Harel
“do not address the first four of my findings.” These
findings fundamentally contradict the Israeli claim that a
“few rounds had overshot and hit the United Nations
compound.”
The Israelis said that two batteries of guns had “converged”
their fire at a single point. But van Kappen found two
concentrations of impacts – the one in the base and one just
outside it.
He found that the “pattern of impacts is inconsistent with a
normal overshooting of the declared target … by a few
rounds, as suggested by the Israeli forces.”
“During the shelling, there was a perceptible shift in the
weight of fire from the mortar site to the United Nations
compound,” van Kappen writes – again contradicting what the
Israelis told him.
Finally, he notes that the physical evidence “makes it
improbable that impact fuses and proximity fuses were
employed in random order, as stated by the Israeli forces.”
Most of the proximity-fused shells fell directly on the
compound.
Following his meeting with the Israelis, van Kappen
reaffirmed his conclusion that “it is unlikely that gross
technical and/or procedural errors led to the shelling of
the United Nations compound. However, it cannot be ruled out
completely.”
So if it wasn’t a mistake, then who did it and for what
reason?
No justice
Families of some of the victims did try to get answers. In
1998, lawyers filed a petition on behalf of victims with the
UN Commission on Human Rights for an investigation which
could have led “to the prosecution of the Israelis
responsible and a UN-backed demand for reparations.”
One of the petitioners was Haidar Bitar, whose two eldest
sons, Hadi and Abdul-Mohsen, aged eight and nine, were
killed in the massacre, as Lebanon’s Daily Star reported.
Bitar’s mother lost an arm in the bombardment.
“Even after 100 years I will continue to remember,” Bitar
told The Daily Star. “I can’t forget what happened just like
any father who has lost two sons.”
US courts grant immunity
In 2005, another victim, Saadallah Ali Belhas, brought a
lawsuit in the US, through the Center for Constitutional
Rights, against Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli army chief at the
time of the massacre.
Belhas’s wife and nine children were killed in the shelling
of the UN base. He lost 31 members of his family altogether.
But US courts granted Yaalon immunity, helping ensure that
the victims of the Qana massacre, like tens of thousands of
Israel’s other victims, have never received justice.
Years later, Bennett and the other participants in these
atrocities win votes and rise to power by boasting about how
many Arabs they have killed.
Yaalon is currently Israel’s defense minister.
The venerated Shimon Peres, the Israeli prime minister at
the time, who ordered the invasion of Lebanon to boost his
popularity before an election he subsequently lost, later
became president.
He is still admired around the world for his alleged love of
peace.
As long as they are assured of impunity, there’s no doubt
they will kill again and again.