Israeli commander suspended after girl's death

An Israeli army platoon commander was suspended today on suspicion he emptied an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl after she was shot from an outpost and collapsed to the ground.

Relatives of 13-year-old Iyman Hams said she was shot by soldiers as she walked to school near the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza.

The army said she had come close to an outpost and was in a zone off-limits to Palestinians. Soldiers suspected she was trying to plant a bomb after she dropped her school bag, and opened fire.

Several soldiers from the outpost have since claimed that after the girl collapsed, the platoon commander ran toward her and fired a volley from his automatic rifle from close range. Under open-fire regulations, soldiers may only shoot when their lives are in danger.

Colonel Eyal Eisenberg, an army commander in Gaza, said he has suspended the platoon commander pending the outcome of an investigation. He said the probe would be conducted quickly and that there would be no whitewash.

In the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, meanwhile, 10-year-old Palestinian girl, Ghadeer Mokheimer, died of injuries she sustained a day earlier, while sitting at her desk in a UN run school.

The army said soldiers fired toward the UN compound after mortar shells were launched from there at Jewish settlements and army outposts.

In other developments today, the army expanded its two-week-old offensive in northern the Gaza Strip, with tanks moving deeper into the town of Beit Lahiya to try to stop Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli border towns.

Three militants were killed and seven Palestinians were wounded in the fighting, including four children between the ages of five and 16, hospital officials said.

Israel’s deputy defence minister, Zeev Boim, said “the expansion of the operation proves we don’t mean to let up” and that the number of rocket attacks has dropped.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops captured the commander of the Islamic militant group Hamas in the city of Hebron, after surrounding his hideout. Emad Qawasmeh, is suspected of having dispatched a number of suicide bombers, including two who blew themselves up in August on Israeli buses, killing 16 people.