Four UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strike

BEIRUT - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has expressed shock after at least four UN observers were killed in an Israeli air raid that destroyed their position in southern Lebanon today.

In a statement issued from Rome, Mr Annan said: "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon that has killed two United Nations military observers, with two more feared dead."

Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman, was reported by CNN as saying he was "deeply distressed" that Mr Annan alleged that the strike was deliberate.

The four had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

It appears that the entire building collapsed while the UN observers were in the shelter below.

Prime Minister Helen Clark condemned the killings this afternoon.

She said: "The deaths of non-combatants and particularly UN staff attempting to keep peace, is deplorable. It is a tragedy that these attacks are claiming the lives of those sent to keep the peace."

Helen Clark said two New Zealand defence force personnel were serving in Lebanon as military observers. A third New Zealander was a UN contractor working on demining operations in Lebanon.

She said the Government would be conveying its concerns over the attack to Israel.

Mr Annan called on the Israeli Government to conduct a full investigation into the incident and demanded that any further attacks on UN positions and personnel must stop.

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked United Nations post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that United Nations positions would be spared Israeli fire," the statement said.

BBC News reported the observers as being from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.

An Israeli tank shell hit a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon yesterday, wounding four Ghanaian soldiers. Shrapnel from tank shells fired from the Israeli side seriously wounded an Indian soldier last week and Hizbollah fire wounded an Italian observer on the border on Monday.

In 1996, during Israel's Grapes of Wrath campaign in Lebanon, an Israeli jet bombed a UNIFIL compound in the southern village of Qana, killing 106 civilians sheltering inside.

UNIFIL was created in 1978 after Israel's first major invasion of southern Lebanon and has been there ever since. The United Nations has called for a bigger, better armed, more robust international force in the area.

- REUTERS, NZHERALD STAFF