Sunday, July 30, 2006

A Note on Israeli Deaths from May 24, 2000 to July 12, 2006.

[Note: the material here was expanded upon in a Boston Globe article published on August 7, 2006. The links to that article and other items that I have written are found elsewhere in this blog.
A total of six Israeli civilians died in that six year period, including one who was killed by a falling anti-aircraft round (fired at Israeli aircraft violating Lebanese airspace) and five in a March 2002 incursion, which Hizballah claimed it had nothing to do with (a claim that I discount). A sixth Israeli victim died in the March 2002 incident, but he was an army officer. I may have missed one or two deaths, but I do not think that the total number is no more than ten.

Additional Israelis may have died due cardiac events during alerts, exchanges of fire, etc., but that would not add more than a few people.

Of course, a number of Israeli soldiers were killed in the period, most of them in the occupied Golan Heights, including the disputed farms.

4 comments:

arn said...

The best source for this info would be UNIFIL, the force in southern Lebanon. Observers attached to UNIFIL from UNTSO, as well as the constituent units of UNIFIL report all incursions. There should be both a weekly and and monthly summary. I would contact the Assn't Sec-Gen for Peacekeeping, an American woman named Jane Holl, or her office. If you have any luck, please share the data. The number, prior to July 12, was certainly in the hundreds. A
Also contact the public affairs officer of UNIFIL.
You could try to contac Timur Goksel, now teaching at AUB. He was the political advisor to UNIFIL and served for two decades in the south.
Note that Israel committed itself to stopping its violations of Lebanese air space when it withdrew in May 2000.

Anonymous said...

Professor Norton, are the numbers for Israeli civilian deaths contained in the UNIFIL documents you cite, or did you tally them from news reports. Thanks for this post.

arn said...

I am still collecting data, but my sources for Israeli civilian deaths are Israeli, not UN. I will also offer corresponding data on Lebanese civilian victims as soon as I finish assembling it.

arn said...

That is a good question. I am still working on data collection, and if I find site that seems to be reliable I will post it. If other readers find such a site, I hope they will share the information.