UN ships disrupt Israeli satellite TV
By AFP
October 10, 2007
Original Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hORqt9jZ2IJ3zm_ltaQAQVDH9NmQ http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hORqt9jZ2IJ3zm_ltaQAQVDH9NmQ
 
Signal disruptions that have plagued Israeli satellite television channels for over a month are believed to be caused by UN ships patrolling off the coast of Lebanon, officials said on Wednesday.
Clients of Yes, Israel's sole satellite television provider, have had to put up with frozen and fuzzy images and sound disturbances for weeks, with the company unable to pin down the source of the problem.
The company, which provides services to nearly one million clients, warned that it risked bankruptcy because customers were abandoning it in droves, so the government stepped in to look for the cause.
Israel now suspects that the source of the disturbances, which began following an Israeli air strike in Syria on September 6, originate from Dutch and German ships of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
Officials believe that part of the systems used by UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) could be the cause for the Yes satellite signal disturbances, foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.
The foreign ministry has approached people in charge of the international peacekeeping mission in New York and communications specialists will work on the issue, he added.
Following last year's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, a boosted 12,000-member UN peacekeeping force -- including navy boats -- patrols the border area along with Lebanese soldiers under the terms of the UN-brokered truce that ended the conflict.