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Lebanon commemorates 1996 Qana massacre by Israel

Sunday, 19 April 2015 6:16 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 19 April 2015 10:25 AM ]

Israeli soldiers patrol the Israel-Lebanon border after a military vehicle was hit by a missile fired by the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, in Shebaa Farms, an occupied area on the border with Lebanon, on January 28, 2015. © AFP

Lebanon has commemorated the 19th anniversary of the massacre of over 100 civilians by Israeli military forces in the southern village of Qana, Press TV reports.

The massacre took place on April 18, 1996 when Israeli warplanes shelled a United Nation compound in Qana in southern Lebanon, killing 106 civilians, many of them women and children, and wounding 116 others.

On Saturday, a group of Lebanese people and officials, including families of the martyrs, attended a ceremony in Qana to commemorate the martyrs of the attack.

Mohammad Ja’afar, who was then an interpreter for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and a survivor of the Israeli aggression, said he never forgets that bloody afternoon.

“I can’t forget to remember because it’s a continuous nightmare since that day,” he said, adding that both the ISIL Takfiri group and the Israeli regime are two “faces for one coin.”

Randa Berri, head of the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Disabled, told Press TV that Israeli terrorism is one facet of the international terrorism.

“What happened in Qana is happening in the world, in the Middle East, in Europe in all of the countries. I think terrorism is now not under the control and we should be very aware,” she added.

Khadijah Atweh, an elderly woman who survived with her two granddaughters, said the liberation of south Lebanon and the continuous victories of the resistance movement against Israel were blessed by the blood of the innocent martyrs of Qana.

The Israeli regime continues to claim that the deadly shelling was a "technical error." However, a United Nations investigation has confirmed that it was very unlikely that Tel Aviv shelled the compound by mistake.

The unprecedented attack was in clear violation of international conventions and widely condemned by human rights organizations. However, the US again blocked any UN Security Council action against the Israeli regime.

YH/MKA/HMV

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