What a horrible, unnecessary incident. Why do the soldiers patrol ON the border line? If they would pull back a mile or two they could maintain good visibility simply by using a quality set of binoculars.! More importantly, incidents such as these three wrongful deaths would be avoided! It is understandable that itchy fingers on a gun, after hours protecting a borderline could cause a wrongful death. But the fact is, this sort of incident is totally avoidable. The men that were involved need to be removed from that border line immediately, and a formal investigation needs to take place as soon as possible. This sad, sad incident is very likely to have a derailing effect on the peace talks unless Israel publicly responds to the Palestinians with the appropriate sympathy and dedication to prevention of future mishaps such as this. Peace to the MIddle East.

First of all "Palestinians" don't exist, their just Arabs who invented the term to steal Jewish land! Second of all Arabs lie about everything. If you believe these teenagers were innocent soccer players then I have a bridge in Brookylin I like to sell you.

Daisy wake up, your having a nightmare, come back to reality. Back to the subject, both sides seem to have valid points. However, the IDF is known to do the above, therefore, the Palestinians will not seek excuses.

they kill arab children with regularity. it is much like a sport, kind of like us americans kill deer, boar and birds, the jews kill pal children. it is fun, no? get to see the mothers and family crying and greiving? it is part of the culture of a militarized population, they LOVE death of innocents

i am sure that you are celebrating the child murder that has once again occurred. you are to be applauded for your efforts to continue the murderous, terrorist, child-killing israeli occupation army

no matter what you say, this murder of children is unjustifiable. every reason that israeli leaders should be sitting next to milosivic in the hague or saddam in baghdad. this is outrageous

...whenever kids or civilians are killed? Those who scream murder every time such an incident happened should ask themselves : - Why are the kids, in this instance, playing so near the border? They have no other safe locations. away from the restricted area, to play soccer? Or were they deliberately asked to do it? Weapons smuggling is well documented, if not as widely reported, by international media. And smugglers (or the masterminds) use all sorts of tricks. Terrorists groups like Hamas/Islamic Jihad and the PLO regularly use children, women and civilians as human shields whenever they confront the IDF. The same groups also manipulate gullible youth and women to become suicide bombers. And Palestinians also kill Israeli children (some as young as 2 years old) whenever they had the chance. Of course, the PA chairman Abbas has selective amnesia - charging Israel of violating the truce while he looks away when his people do the same.

Many hard core left wing Pro-Pal activists write phoney posts pretending to be right wing Jews just for propaganda purposes. They do no good whatsoever to help matters between the majority or peace loving Israelis and Palestinians. They call us 'child killing Jews' - not far off from the typical anti-semtiic rants from hundreds of years ago really. Shalom all.

PA children break the law, enter forbidden areas, act like criminals, should one be surprised if they suffer? Is the Policeman a criminal for citing you for speeding? slow down and you won't be cited! Tell your children to do good, respect the law and they will prosper. Israleis will NEVER shoot your innocents.

Similar to the arguments people use for or against the death sentence, which either your sense of morality accepts or denies based on your opinion of the efficacy of a death sentence and the rarity of injustice in the implementing it, the same ethical choices exist in the belief that there are ethics of war. Both war and the law are means of enforcing sovereignty, and there is no recognized member nation of the UN who is prohibited by law from operating in accordance with these laws when they feel their existence is threatened. Just as it's tendentious to call America a "criminal state" for allowing a death sentence, and Europe or Israel "enlightened states" simply because they don't allow it, it's also tendentious to call militaries that follow the rules/ethics of war "criminal" regimes when they are at war and people get killed, especially when you have never fought in a war and don't know what horrible choices face you when you have to choose between the sure loss of your own life at the possible but not certain cost of the life of others. Countries who are never in conflict can't in my view pretend to be "enlightened" if they never face the choices armed conflicts force on us. It's like a rich man casting judgment on a poor man for not working hard enough. The rules of war include not attacking non-combatants (includes unarmed soldiers, medics, civilians). This restriction is accepted by all legitimate militaries, including the Israeli one. It's not accepted by Hizbollah, PA, Hamas, Al Aqsa Brigades, Jihad Islami, Al Queda, etc., who seem to think that any non-Muslim is a soldier. This ethic separates these groups from guerilla groups, giving them the brand of "terrorists". Another rule of war is never to use ambulances or children as a cover to advance combat objectives, which is a rule that the Palestinians break over and over and over again. That the Israeli soldiers suspected these boys of being involved in smuggling is not out of line with the past behavior of Palestinian combatants, and the fault lay in no small part with those amongst Palestinians who cynically have used children (never their own, only those of their neighbors) knowing that they can't lose if the Israelis kill them - either they get their wares, or they advance the Palestinian cause by making the Israelis look like insensitive animals. So while I know of no Israelis who justify child murder, I also know of very few Israelis who would call a military effort to prevent smuggling of weapons that can shoot down Israeli airliners, pierce Israeli skulls, destroy Israeli busses unjustified. We're quite certain that's what they will be used for, because the Palestinians say so and show that they mean to use them for those purposes. When you look at the events in that context, you can see a tragedy, but you can see that it was justified based on the Palestinians' abuse of children to advance their military objectives. Israel is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't, so it doesn't pay much attention to shrill and illogical claims like yours.

Seeing these replies disgusts me. How can someone justify the killing of these kids? Where is the humane side of people these days? Stop seeking excuses and justifications, stay on the subject, and condem this!

to read shai's nonsense, this is what he said. "they started it! they play dirty, so we HAVE to react and sometimes we ACCIDENTALLY play dirty!" same garbage, different story. grow up and realize there is no moral high ground on either side.

From a person who claims that "Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization", you are not well positioned to keep score on who is holding the moral high ground. No, it's not about "playing dirty" or "who started it". There was never a clean war, and wars are more about who finished it than who started it. And it's difficult to understand why suddenly you're backpeddling about there being "no moral high ground on either side" after accusing Israelis of being "war criminals" precisely on moral issues like you perceive this to be, and then you ignore that Israel is following well-established rules of war that define, as precisely as it can be defined, when war tips over to the side of inhumanity. That fine line is when war become something other than a means to prevent more death than it causes. It seems to me that smugglers like these Palestinians are decreasing the possibility that the cease-fire will stick, which has obvious consequences on the number of dead on both sides. They are bringing in weapons that will kill many more than 3 and certainly many more than that will be kids, and perhaps if you could find "an hour" to find a spine and face up to the consequences of your amoral approach, one that justifies the tactics of Hezbollah, you'd see just how wrong you are, and how right Israel was in preventing the success of the smugglers who cynically sent teenagers to do their work for them.

Now get out of my country!

He y edward what about the terrorists who murder Jewish children everyday?

They are evil!

PA Security confirms the boys were trying to smuggle weapons. (JP / Haaretz) Is that not dangerous enough? Why did the PA Security nothing to stop them? They are committed to stop all terror activity. Why are you so sure, all you commentators? Did YOU see the boys playing soccer? With a whole worlds attention upon them, the Israeli soldiers would be pretty mad if they shot innocent children.

"This Kids were Hamas members" said Daisy (USA). And you, what kind of judge are you? How can you justify any kind of murder? and murder of chilfren? One day you will be in front of God and all your life and ideas will be seen again... and the judge will not be you!