ISRAEL yesterday accused the United Nations of having harboured Hizbullah guerrillas in a base where Israeli artillery shelling killed more than loo Lebanese civilians last month.
Israeli officials took the offensive after the release on Tuesday of a UN report saying it was unlikely the attack on the Qana base, where civilians were sheltering, was accidental, while not ruling out Israel's explanation that it was a mistake.
Army officials yesterday showed reporters footage from an Israeli pilotless reconnaissance aircraft, which they said disproved charges that Israeli artillery had aimed for the camp on April 18th during a two week campaign in south Lebanon against pro Iranian fighters.
The officials said UN investigators had ignored the footage.
"We showed them a cassette taken by the drone that was flying nearby . . . and one can see clearly that there is no way in which you can tell from the drone that there are civilians there," said a government spokesman, Mr Uri Dromi.
Videotape shot by a UN soldier showing an Israeli drone flying close to Qana formed the basis of the UN report prepared for the Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali.
"Unfortunately, the UN chose to ignore that [footage shot by the Israeli drone], maybe because the UN has tough questions to answer about how come . . those Hizbullah terrorists felt so at home in the compound of the UN," Mr Dromi said.
Israel had said Hizbullah guerrillas launched Katyusha rockets at the Jewish state from a site just 350 metres away from the UN base at Qana. It claims they might have taken refuge in the compound.
Challenging Israel's contention that it had the wrong map coordinates for the camp, the author of the UN report, Maj Gen Frank van Kappen of the Netherlands, said the United Nations had bases in the area for 18 years.
The commander of Israel's drone unit who operated a pilotless plane on the day of the incident said he had guided it to the site of the attack only after the shelling.
"At exactly 2:17 pm. I got a message to run to Qana because something not good had happened in that area. They told me to go and look," the officer, who could only be identified as "Lieut Col B", told reporters.
He said the shelling had been over for several minutes when he got the message.
Footage shot from the drone showed black smoke billowing from a building hundreds of metres below.
The shelling of the UN compound, which served as the headquarters of a Fijian battalion, occurred while more than 800 Lebanese had taken shelter in the camp.
The slaughter was a turning point in Israel's campaign, code named Operation Grapes of Wrath, with Israel exposed to international condemnation. Its main ally, the United States, began a feverish round of shuttle diplomacy which eventually brought an end to the conflict.
The United States has strongly criticised the UN report's "unjustified conclusions" and said it could jeopardise the tenuous ceasefire the Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, brokered.
But others were more critical of Israel. Britain described the report as "disturbing".
"The findings in the report are disturbing," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "We believe that the United Nations have conducted a thorough investigation which must be taken seriously."
Meanwhile, in Washington the State Department has acknowledged there are differences among the nations in the cease fire monitoring committee set up after Operation Grapes of Wrath.
The group, composed of the United States, France, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, is to hold its first senior meeting tomorrow in Washington.