A new United Nations report has come to the obvious yet important conclusion that Israel used disproportionate force when it opened fire on refugees who marched on the Lebanon-Israel border during this year’s Nakba day protests. Seven people were killed and 111 injured in these protests, while another four were killed at the Syrian border. Some 8-10,000 took part in the protests.
“Other than firing initial warning shots, the Israel Defence Forces did not use conventional crowd control methods or any other method than lethal weapons against the demonstrators,” the report says.
“The firing of live ammunition … against the demonstrators, which resulted in the loss of civilian life and a significant number of casualties, constituted a violation of resolution 1701 (2006) and was not commensurate to the threat to Israeli soldiers,” the report continues. Resolution 1701 ended Israel’s 2006 assault on Lebanon.
Israel is said to be hopping mad about the report. Indeed, it took the diplomatically immature step of cutting off ties with the report’s author, the UN’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Michael Williams. No word on whether anyone has called him a small man, an evil man, or an existential threat.
