Palestinaisn being slaughtered and a prick with a cowboy hat is on frint page

greenflash wrote: »

Hamas fire their (admittedly sh1t) rockets from schools, hospitals and residential apartment blocks, knowing that Israel will track the launch sites and return fire. Rather than protecting their fellow Palestinians or evacuating the areas, Hamas wait for the Israeli strikes with cameras at the ready, so they can put pictures of dying babies on the internet as soon as possible. ..............

dj jarvis wrote: »

you are dead right , i did not know of this story ,any links?
and as for giving you an answer ? you never asked me a question , i asked your opinion.

but i would be correct in inferring that Israeli backed militia and IDF in south Lebanon killed more Irish UN troops than any other affiliated side.
i have heard this mentioned by past members of the PDF who were stationed in camp shamrock , not excluding the PLO and as you said , the kidnapping

A breakthrough has finally been achieved in a 20-year investigation into the disappearance of an Irish soldier in Lebanon.

Kevin Joyce has been 'missing presumed dead' since April 1981 - the United Nations' only missing-in-action 'blue beret'.

The Inisheer-born private was kidnapped from his UN observation post in south Lebanon by a Palestinian faction a year before the Israelis invaded the region.

Until now, those behind the abduction and suspected murder of the soldier, who was 19 at the time, have refused to admit responsibility.

However, a spokesman for the Irish Defence Forces has confirmed that talks are under way aimed at finding Joyce's remains.

The Irish battalion of Unifil has only seven months left to find the missing soldier's remains - the unit finally pulls out of Lebanon in November.

'Negotiations are still going on,' he said. 'There has been contact with a number of groups. The Irish battalion are dealing with this.'

The battalion is working with the Maronite Bishop of Tyre and the Lebanese Minister for Missing and Displaced Persons, Senator Mirwan Hamadi.

It is understood that Palestinians from refugee camps in south Lebanon have agreed to discuss the whereabouts of Joyce's remains - the first time anyone has admitted knowledge about the missing soldier.

John Laffery, president of the army's union, PDFORRA, travelled to south Lebanon with Joyce's family last week to oversee the investigation into his disappearance.

'This is a festering sore for the Defence Forces,' he said. 'Every soldier that has served in Lebanon over the past 21 years owes to Kevin Joyce that we do everything to find him. Talks are under way and we hope his remains can be found before the Irish battalion pulls out in November.

'All the Joyce family want is to take Kevin's remains back to Ireland so he can be given a Christian burial on Inisheer.'

Joyce's comrade, Hugh Doherty, was shot dead during the raid on their post near the village of Dyar Ntar on 27 April 1981. Pte Doherty, who had just turned 20, was shot three times in the back. Joyce meanwhile, according to UN intelligence reports, was taken to a Palestinian refugee camp in Tyre.

He was shot dead a few weeks later following a gun battle between Palestinians and UN soldiers in south Lebanon. The shoot-out at Deir Amis between the Palestinians and Fijian blue berets sealed Joyce's fate. The young Irish solder was killed in retaliation for the deaths of several Palestinian militiamen.

Further investigations by Irish UN officers over the following 12 months established that a Lebanese man working for a Palestinian faction, Abu Amin Dayk, led the gang that killed Doherty and seized Joyce.

Dayk himself was executed in May 1984 by the Shia Muslim Amal militia for alleged crimes against local Lebanese. He was publicly hanged near the village of Marrakeh.

One Irish officer who tried to track Joyce down actually met Dayk shortly before Amal arrested him.

'Dayk was in his mid-thirties. He was of slight build. He had black hair and spoke in a very deep monosyllabic tone,' the former officer said. 'I remember during that meeting he appeared to be very nervous. You could tell that he was aware that his enemies were closing in.

'It was weird being in the same room as the man we suspected had been behind the Dyar Ntar attack. He was very uneasy during the meeting. He kept looking out the window. When people like Dayk sought a meeting with Unifil you could be sure their power was waning.'

Over the years Irish investigators were fed various red herrings about Joyce's disappearance , including that he was killed in an Israeli air raid on the Ein Hilweh refugee camp during the 1982 invasion and that he had defected to the Palestinian side and started fighting with the guerrillas.