The US House of Representatives on Monday passed a resolution calling for the United Nations to give Israel an unedited video filmed in Lebanon by a UN peacekeeper one day after three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by the Lebanese Hizbollah movement.
Adopted by a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Congress, the resolution calls for UN officials to "immediately transfer to the Israeli government an unedited and uncensored video" that could "provide material evidence for the investigation" into the kidnapping of the three soldiers from the occupied Shabaa Farms in October 2000, said AFP.
After denying the film's existence for months, the UN admitted on July 5 that it had a film shot by an Indian UN peacekeeper on October 8, the day after the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by members of Hizbollah.
The UN admitted to being "embarrassed" by the affair and offered Israel the possibility of seeing an edited version of the film, in which the faces of the suspected Hizbollah members had been blurred.
But the Israelis have demanded to see the entire film, a notion that Beirut and Hizbollah have condemned as a "dangerous precedent."
The 30-minute tape reportedly shows efforts by UN troops to remove two abandoned cross-country vehicles and their interception by a group of armed men, allegedly from Hizbollah.
The vehicles were marked with bloodstains and carried false UN license plates, a UN official said recently.
A UN team last month finished a probe into the video saga after visits to south Lebanon.
The probe was ordered by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – Albawaba.com
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