Israel says its artillery didn't hit Gaza family

JERUSALEM -- Israel denied yesterday that its artillery caused the explosion that killed seven members of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach Friday in a tragedy that enraged Palestinians and rekindled debate within Israel about army tactics.

The Israeli military said its investigation, based on an analysis of its artillery fire and shrapnel found in one victim, proved that the explosion did not come from Israeli shells; some officials suggested it was caused by a mine laid by Palestinian militants.

But a probe by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group that is conducting an ongoing inquiry into the impact on civilians from Israeli shellings in Gaza and from Palestinian militant rocket attacks on Israel, said an examination of the scene and victims' injuries ``strongly supports the theory" that the blast was caused by an Israeli shell.

Israel's report was issued hours after a new Israeli air strike killed two militants and eight civilians in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital officials said.

In a conflict in which images and symbols can be as powerful as military weapons, the recent deaths have intensified debate over the Israeli shelling campaign in northern Gaza, which the military says is aimed at stopping Palestinian militants from firing missiles into Israeli territory.

In the Palestinian territories and in Israel in recent days, emotions have boiled over as television stations repeatedly show images of Huda Ghalia, 12, who survived the blast that slammed into her family during a picnic Friday, crying over her father's body against a backdrop of sand and surf.

Within hours, she had become an icon. To Palestinians, she represented their people's suffering. To some Israelis, she represented Palestinian attempts to exploit victims to tarnish Israel and its military, while to others her anguish was an alarm bell warning the country to change its tactics.

Now, Israeli and Palestinian officials offer opposite interpretations of Friday's deaths -- and of yesterday's strike, in which four Palestinian ambulance workers and two children were killed, along with a father and two young sons, in a missile attack that also killed two members of the militant group Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli military said that in yesterday's attack it targeted militants in Gaza who were on their way to fire rockets. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the Israeli strike ``state terrorism."

On Friday, after the explosions on the beach, Israeli officials quickly issued statements expressing ``deep regret" over the civilian deaths and promising an investigation, but did not deny involvement. The military's tone changed in recent days, first as unnamed officials suggested Israeli was not responsible, then with yesterday's public denial.

Friday's blast, and Israel's targeting of a top militant and government official the day before, prompted calls for revenge by Hamas and sparked an increase in the number of Palestinian missiles fired into Israeli civilian areas -- more than 100 since Friday, according to the Israeli military, leaving one man reportedly in critical condition.

The deaths also prompted Israeli soul-searching. Popular novelist David Grossman, writing in the Ma'ariv newspaper, asked Israelis to consider ``towards what abyss are we propelling ourselves" and compared the ``once bold and original" military to ``a heavy piston . . . pummeling [Palestinians] deeper into their humiliation and rage and desire for revenge."

Ma'ariv editor Amnon Dankner wrote an equally visceral rebuttal, defending the army's tactics and accusing Grossman and others of ``hastily casting guilt upon ourselves because we dare to stand up for what is ours and for our lives."

In an interview, Peter Bouckaert, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, blamed Hamas and other militants, saying they deliberately target Israeli civilians, and Israeli forces, arguing that they use ``disproportionate" and ``indiscriminate" force that inevitably kills civilians and destroys infrastructure.

``Neither side can justify attacks based on the conduct of the other side," he said. ``Both sides need to respect civilians."

Last year a Palestinian rocket killed a 20-year-old Israeli woman sitting on her porch. The militants' inaccurate Qassam missiles often miss their targets but terrify residents of towns bordering Gaza.

In response, Israeli shelling of Gaza -- 5,000 shells since March, according to the United Nations -- has hammered Palestinian roads and farmlands. In April, a girl in northern Gaza was killed when an Israeli shell struck her house, and last month three members of a family were killed and two were paralyzed when an Israeli strike aimed at a militant in a nearby vehicle hit their car. Israel accepted responsibility in both cases.

Dueling assessments of Friday's blast emerged yesterday.

``We have enough findings to back up the suspicion that the intention to describe this as an Israeli event is simply not correct," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said during a press conference in Tel Aviv. ``The accumulating evidence proves that this incident was not due to Israeli forces."

General Meir Kalifi, who headed the Israeli inquiry, said that while air force, naval, and army artillery had all been fired at Gaza that day, the shelling of the target nearest the beach, about 1 1/2 miles away, had stopped several hours before the beach explosion.

He also said that shrapnel recovered from one of the victims being treated in Israel did not come from a 155mm artillery shell, one of the weapons Israelis were using.

Israeli officials suggested the explosion came from Palestinian mines planted to repel an Israeli attack. Palestinians angrily rejected that assertion, noting that the beach is heavily used.

Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said the group's investigator, Marc Galasco, who previously worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency identifying targets in Iraq, found shrapnel from Israeli-made 155mm shells at the scene, although it was unclear whether they came from other blasts the same day.

He said Galasco found that most of the victims' injuries were to the upper body, as is typical in artillery strikes, rather than the lower body, which is typical in mine explosions. He also said the crater left by the fatal explosion resembled the others left by shells fired earlier in the area.

Israeli officials said Palestinian forces were observed after the blast clearing away evidence; Galasco reported that they were a government team detailed to remove unexploded ordnance.

Kalifi said Israeli surveillance pinpointed the time of the explosion to between 4:47 and 5:10 p.m. He said the closest air force strike on Friday was 1 1/2 miles north of the picnicking family and did not begin until five minutes after the fatal blast.

Six 155mm artillery shells were fired by land forces, Kalifi said, and all but the first have been accounted for. Though the military does not know where the first one went, it was fired too early to have caused the beach deaths, he said.

Gunboats also fired shells Friday afternoon, but they landed 700 yards from the scene, he said.

``There is not a single shell that hit the area of the incident, and those which were fired closest to the area were fired more than four hours before the incident," he said.

Bouckaert said the evidence ``strongly supports" the contention that Israeli shelling was responsible for the deaths , but that more research is needed.

Globe correspondent Ahmed Abu Hamda contributed to this report from Gaza.