Qana, April 18... Do not forget

At 12:05 on April 18, 1996, Israeli artillery hit a UN compound in the village of Qana, in Southern Lebanon. Around 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge there to escape the fighting, of whom 106 were killed and around 116 others injured.

The United Nations appointed Major-General Franklin Van Kappen to investigate the incident. As you can read in this letter to the UN Secretary-General, his findings were:

"(a) The distribution of impacts at Qana shows two distinct concentrations, whose mean points of impact are about 140 metres apart. If the guns were converged, as stated by the Israeli forces, there should have been only one main point of impact.

(b) The pattern of impacts is inconsistent with a normal overshooting of the declared target (the mortar site) by a few rounds, as suggested by the Israeli forces.

(c) During the shelling, there was a perceptible shift in the weight of fire from the mortar site to the United Nations compound.

(d) The distribution of point impact detonations and air bursts makes it improbable that impact fuses and proximity fuses were employed in random order, as stated by the Israeli forces.

(e) There were no impacts in the second target area which the Israeli forces claim to have shelled.

(f) Contrary to repeated denials, two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle were present in the Qana area at the time of the shelling.

While the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors."