Israeli defence minister orders inquiry into killings of Palestinians by army

ISRAEL’S defence minister has ordered a speedy investigation into recent killings of Palestinians, including at least eight civilians, by army fire, his office said yesterday.

The minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, appointed a general to head the inquiry. He asked the army chief, Lt Gen Moshe Yaalon, to present by Friday "operative findings to prevent such unfortunate mishaps in the future."

In radio interviews, Ben-Eliezer again apologised for the killings of civilians, among them a six-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and two teenagers.

The deaths, in two separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have outraged Palestinians. Several senior Palestinian officials demanded an end to recent Israeli-Palestinian security talks on a gradual ceasefire.

"After each meeting with the Israelis, a new massacre happens somewhere in the Palestinian territories," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said on Sunday.

Early on Thursday, Israeli troops fired a tank shell at a home in the Gaza Strip, killing a mother, her two grown sons and another relative. The army said at the time the troops saw suspicious figures crawling in an area off-limits to civilians and opened fire. It apologised for the killings. The victims' relatives said troops fired randomly from tanks toward farmers sitting under a fig tree.

On Saturday, an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car in the West Bank town of Tubas, targeting a senior militant. Instead, a lower-level militant, two teenagers who were in the car with him and two young children playing nearby were killed. The target of the attack escaped.

Four more Palestinians were killed early on Sunday. The army said the four were moving in a field farmed by Jews, and soldiers who were warned that four Palestinians would try to carry out an attack in the area fired and killed them. Palestinians say the four were labourers killed in cold blood.

Israeli officials, including President Moshe Katsav, have called for the army to investigate the deaths. Others questioned whether soldiers have too light a trigger finger. The deaths follow the July killing of 14 civilians, among them nine children, in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip. In that incident, the air force targeted senior Hamas militant, Salah Shehadeh, and dropped a one-ton bomb on his home. He was also killed in the attack. The operation was harshly criticised, including by the United States. But Israel's air force commander, Maj Gen Dan Halutz, defended the strike, saying Shehadeh was responsible for carrying out several attacks against Israelis.

The Islamic group Hamas is responsible for a spate of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed hundreds of civilians in the past two years. Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the military would not stop hunting suspected militants.

"The initiated actions will continue but they (army commanders) will have to look at the way they operate to try to prevent civilian deaths," Gissin said. Also yesterday, Palestinians fired a mortar shell at a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip. No injuries or damage were reported, the army said.