QANA: WAS THE ATTACK DELIBERATE?

By Kevin Fedarko

Less than a month has passed since more than 100 Lebanese civilians were slaughtered by an Israeli artillery barrage on a U.N. compound. In that time, the village of Qana has become a shrine to Lebanon's rage and anguish. Photographs of the victims, who include at least 25 children under the age of 12, adorn a cement memorial. Black banners decry Israel's "terrorism" and "barbarity." But did Israel attack the U.N. base deliberately? Lebanese say yes. Israel vehemently says no, it was an accident. Last week the U.N. reported on its own investigation by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's top military adviser. The verdict clobbered Israel. "It is unlikely," wrote Major General Franklin van Kappen in his six-page report, "that the shelling of the U.N. compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors."

During his eight-day investigation, Van Kappen found evidence that no fewer than 36 Israeli shells had landed in or near the U.N. camp, concentrating in two areas. According to his report, the first pocket, 120 yds. south of the base, was struck almost exclusively by "impact-fuzed" shells, which explode when they hit the ground. These rounds, which are most effective at destroying equipment and munitions, landed close to where Hizballah had been firing a mortar at a nearby Israeli ground unit. The second area, located in the U.N. base itself, was hit mainly by "proximity-fuzed" shells, which are designed to detonate above the ground so as to widen the radius of impact. The use of that ordnance, which is especially effective at killing and maiming, explains why an exact count of the dead has never been made: there were simply too many shredded body parts.

It may also reveal something about Israel's intentions. At some point after Hizballah's mortar attack, two, or perhaps three, of its fighters entered the camp. That has prompted some U.N. officials to suggest privately that Israel knew exactly what it was doing: it bombed the mortar site first, then deliberately aimed the airburst shells at the compound in the hopes of nailing the fighters. Van Kappen's monograph did not go so far as to make this accusation explicit--although the U.S., which fears that the report may jeopardize a new agreement to contain the war between Israel and Hizballah, is apparently interpreting it in this light.

The report also points up discrepancies in Israel's responses to the event, the most glaring of which is this: the shells' pattern is at odds with the argument that the "accident" was a result of "a couple of stray shells," as the Israelis originally claimed. As Van Kappen told TIME last week, "When I went there, I believed the Israeli army: a few shells had just overshot. I was there only 10 minutes when I knew I was in deep trouble. This was not a simple overshoot." Nevertheless, the Israelis, who have contradicted themselves several times in an effort to explain how the atrocity occurred, insist that the report is grossly unfair. They say the attack was not deliberate and attribute the shelling of the U.N. compound to a combination of map-reading error and differing muzzle velocities. But with each effort to backtrack, Israel only seems to dig itself deeper into Qana's moral crater.

--By Kevin Fedarko. Reported by Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem, Lara Marlowe/Qana and Marguerite Michaels/New York

With reporting by LISA BEYER/JERUSALEM, LARA MARLOWE/ QANA AND MARGUERITE MICHAELS/NEW YORK