News / Palestine

UN peacekeeper in Lebanon likely killed by Israel: Video

Sunday, 01 February 2015 7:04 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 01 February 2015 7:15 AM ]

An Israeli army 155mm mobile artillery battery is stationed near the Lebanese border in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on January 29, 2015. (©AFP)

A new footage released after recent clashes between Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and Israel suggests that the Tel Aviv regime was likely responsible for the killing of a Spanish UN peacekeeper in the violence.

The video clip, captured by the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon and distributed in the Spanish media, purportedly shows that an Israeli shell probably targeted Spanish UN peacekeeper Cpl. Francisco Javier Soria Toledo on January 28, Russia Today reported on Sunday.

In the footage taken by a cell phone, two United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers could be seen talking in their vehicle next to a watchtower, as the sound of the first artillery shell is heard in the background.

Then the camera is aimed at the wall separating Lebanon from the occupied Palestinian territories, with one of the peacekeepers saying, “They're falling from Israel, man!”
“Hush, hush, let’s see...they’re falling from...How can that be? It cannot be that, huh?,” responds the other peacekeeper.

The two became nervous after hearing the whistling of another shell. “Where, where, where? No time...bunker, to bunker!” can be heard. The shell then strikes a position near their car.

It is not obvious whether the blast seen in the video was the exact one that left 36-year-old Toledo dead near the village of Ghajar. However, the Israeli regime responded to Hezbollah’s surprise attack that killed two Israeli soldiers with combined aerial and ground strikes on southern Lebanon.

Spanish media reports, meanwhile, said that Israeli army had warned the UNIFIL contingent of the retaliatory assaults some 20 minutes before the shelling began. This comes as the Israeli military had said its offensive would target the area of the Sheba’a Farms and but had not mentioned shelling of the area of the Ghajar village where the UN peacekeepers where posted.

The reports also noted that UNIFIL called for a truce to evacuate the injured in the area after the initial Israeli attack, but when the medical team was operating, shelling from the Israeli side resumed.

Tensions have been on the rise in the area after an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian sector of the occupied Golan Heights killed six Hezbollah fighters and a top Iranian commander on January 18.

MR/HMV

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