Saturday, September 30 2006 13:32 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: A United Nations inquiry into an Israeli attack on the world body's post in Lebanon on July 25 which killed four of its monitors has blamed Tel Aviv for the incident, saying its personnel had followed all procedures and could not have done anything more.

Israel has accepted full responsibility for the attack on the post in Khiyam and apologised for what it calls an "operational level" mistake but the investigators were unable to determine why attacks on the post were not stopped despite repeated appeals from the UN personnel, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report yesterday.

"The Board did not have access to operational or tactical level IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) commanders involved in the incident, and was therefore unable to determine why the attacks on the UN position were not halted despite repeated demarches to the Israeli authorities from UN personnel, both in the field and at Headquarters," Annan said.

The inquiry also revealed that a 500-kilogram, precision-guided aerial bomb was used in the attack which killed the four UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said 21 strikes were made within 300 metres of the patrol base that day, with the UN protesting each one to the IDF.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown also made several calls to Israel's UN mission.

After UNIFIL headquarters lost contact with the base, it coordinated safe passage for two armoured personnel carriers which pushed through and discovered the shelter had collapsed and the four observers dead.