French peacekeepers prepared to fire at two Israeli warplanes flying low over their position in south Lebanon today but did not launch their missiles, a UNIFIL spokesman said.
Milos Struger said that during one of the day's 14 Israeli air violations of Lebanese airspace two F-15s flew low and at high speed over the area of Jabal Maroun where French troops are positioned, while two Israeli drones circled the area. "
UNIFIL anti-aircraft batteries took essential preparatory action to respond in accordance with regulations of self-defence," Struger told Reuters by telephone. He did not say how close the peacekeepers came to firing at the planes and why they aborted the action.
"UNIFIL strongly protested to Israel over the flights which are unacceptable and in violation of resolution 1701," he said.
Security Council Resolution 1701 ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in mid-August.
Meanwhile an Israeli human rights group has called for a military investigation into the deaths of two unarmed Palestinians shot during an army raid in the occupied West Bank this month.
B'Tselem, an independent group that monitors Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories, said witnesses had described a sequence of events that contradicted the Israeli military's account of the raid on November 7th-8th, and that there was evidence Israeli forces had engaged in unlawful killing.
"B'Tselem's investigation indicates that Salim Abu al-Heijah and Mahmoud Abu Hassan were executed by soldiers while they lay wounded, unarmed and posed no risk to the soldiers," the group said in a report posted on its website.
"Even if the operation in Yamun was part of combat rather than law-enforcement activities, as Israel often claims, the killing of the two men constituted a grave breach of the laws of war in international humanitarian law.
"These laws categorically prohibit wilful killing of combatants who can no longer defend themselves due to injury. . . . Such a killing is defined as a war crime," it said.
In an official response to the report, the Israeli army said its troops had entered a house in Yamun, near Jenin, only after being told by residents that there was no one left inside, and then discovered what it claimed were several suspected militants hiding there.
"During the searching, the force identified several suspicious figures inside the structure and fired at them," the army said.
Israeli troops carry out almost daily raids in towns across the West Bank, especially around Jenin, which is regarded as a militant stronghold. Israeli forces have occupied the West Bank since capturing the territory in the 1967 Middle East war.