Official: Int’l probe? Investigate Qassam fire first
Top government official says Israel would cooperate with int’l probe on Gaza blast ‘five minutes after similar probe on Qassam fire on Sderot is concluded’
Responding to calls for an international investigation into the recent Gaza beach explosion that left seven Palestinians dead, a senior government official said Saturday that Israel would cooperate with such a probe “five minutes after a similar investigation into the Qassam fire on Sderot is concluded.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among those demanding an investigation be launched into the Gaza incident.
Israeli government officials said they believe there are those who whish to benefit politically from the Ghalia family tragedy.
A day after receiving the findings of the IDF probe into the blast, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in Paris that the findings apparently prove Israel was not involved in the beach explosion, adding that he hopes those countries that condemned Israel immediately following the incident would refrain from doing so in the future without waiting for an investigation’s conclusions.
“Our enemies are not Palestinian children or mothers,” Olmert said. “We do not want to harm innocent civilians.”
During his meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top UK officials, Olmert stressed the fact that tragedies may accidentally occur during Israeli self-defense activity, adding that the difference is that Palestinian Qassam rocket fire toward civilian targets in Israel is intentional.
UK newspapers cast doubt on IDF's version
The prime minister reiterated this stance in meetings with French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
“Israel has thoroughly investigated the Gaza blast, and we found no connection between the incident and the IDF operation,” an official said. “As far as we’re concerned, the conclusions stand. We will agree to an international investigation five minutes after the continuous Qassam fire is probed,” he said.
The battle of versions over what happened at the Gaza beach last weekend continued Saturday, even after the Israel Defense Forces published its investigation report that determined that the Israeli army was not involved in the death of seven members of the Ghalia family.
The British Guardian and Independent newspapers published independent investigations which cast a doubt on the IDF's version. According to the reporters, the key point is the army's claim that the shelling of the area was halted nine minutes before the seven family members were killed.
This claim is not in line with testimonies given by survivors and medical personnel who attended to the injured, the reports said.
'Family members were not hit by our artillery shell'
In addition to these findings, the Times reported that the IDF admitted to the newspaper's reporter that its official account of the explosion was flawed. According to the report, the army failed to mention two shells fired from navy boats at around the times of the deaths. The two shells hit the beach between 4:24 p.m. and 4:55 p.m.
The IDF Spokesperson's Office firmly denied the report.
Major-General Meir Kalifi, who investigated the death of seven members of the Ghalia family in Gaza last week, said in response to the UK newspapers’ findings "According to the findings I have, from examinations in which I checked one shell after the other, including the 'missing' shell which had a slim chance of hitting the target, I can say very clearly that the family members were not hit by our artillery shell," Kalifi said.
"There is no statement that undermines our findings. There have already been quite a few incidents which took the foreign media time to understand that we only present the truth," he added.
Hanan Greenberg contributed to the report
