(AP/Washington Post) Mark Lavie - Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday that Israel was not responsible for a blast that killed eight Gaza beachgoers, rebuffing Palestinian accusations that blamed an Israeli artillery round. "The accumulating evidence proves that this incident was not due to Israeli forces," Peretz said. An Israeli inquiry concluded the blast was caused by an explosive buried in the sand, not from Israeli shelling on the afternoon of the Palestinian family's beach picnic. Israel has been claiming that Hamas militants planted a device to set off against Israeli commandos. According to Israeli findings, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the fragments were not from the 155-millimeter shells used by Israeli artillery. Showing aerial photographs and film, the head of the Israeli inquiry, Maj. Gen. Meir Klifi, declared: "There is no chance that a shell hit this area. Absolutely no chance."
2006-06-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive