JUST two weeks after a US mediated ceasefire put an end to Israel's bombardment of south Lebanon, the limitations of the truce arrangement are becoming all too clear.
For the second day in succession Hizbullah gunmen ambushed soldiers of the Israeli backed South Lebanon Army, who patrol the buffer zone Israel occupies in south Lebanon, badly wounding one. On Thursday, two SLA members were hurt in a similar bomb attack.
While the truce outlaws fire at civilians from either side of the border, in negotiating the cease fire terms neither the Syrian nor the Lebanese governments was prepared to commit Hizbullah to refraining from attacking Israeli or Israeli allied troops they consider to be illegally occupying their territory. As a consequence, tension in the area remains high, and can always rise.
The US is also still having trouble reaching agreement with Israel, France, Lebanon and Syria about the composition of the panel to monitor the ceasefire. Lebanon and Syria want it made cup of military representatives, Israel wants cabinet ministers and France wants diplomats.
While the US yesterday hosted another meeting on the matter, an Israeli newspaper gave a detailed account of the worst incident of the fighting, Israel's April 18th shelling of the Unifil base at Qana, in which almost 100 Lebanese civilians died.
In contrast to the official UN report, which suggested the Israeli shelling was probably intentional, Unifil officials are now being quoted here as saying they believe the tragedy was a consequence of Israeli army negligence. And a lengthy investigation, in the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha'ir, supported this contention.
The article featured interviews with the Israeli gunners who fired the fatal shells, one of whom is quoted as describing the incident as "a screw up that could have been prevented". The soldiers describe an overly hasty approach to the firing of their shells, revealing that, in the heat of the moment, not all the checks to ensure accuracy of fire were carried out.
The soldiers received orders to retaliate for a Hizbullah Katyusha bombardment that was endangering an Israeli ground force unit, they say. When they got word that their shells had hit the UN base, and that civilians had been killed, there was a degree of confusion, but no one was too depressed.
The soldiers quote their commander as telling them that "these things happen in war", that they were "shooting well" and that, there were "millions of Arabs".
The commander noted that the Hizbullah gunmen Israel was targeting showed no compunction about using civilians as human shields. And one soldier quoted the commander as using a Hebrew slang word - Arabushim - that translates as "dirty Arabs" to describe the victims.
An official army statement issued yesterday in reaction to the report questioned its accuracy.
The Israeli army otherwise refused to respond to the newspaper article, beyond stating that it underlined Israel's claim that the fire on Qana was not deliberate.