Associated Foreign Press
November 23, 2001

TABRIYYEH (AFP) - Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin bin Eliezer voiced "regret" for the deaths of five Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip and announced an inquiry, after reports said an army booby-trap was to blame.

A ministry statement said the minister had expressed "regret at the human tragedy which occurred yesterday at Khan Yunis and caused the death of innocent victims."

The statement said that evidence indicated that the explosion which killed the children, who were all related, occurred "on waste ground from where Israeli settlements and military positions had been fired upon on several occasions."

"An inquiry has been opened by the army into the circumstances of the incident and its conclusions will be submitted to the minister," it added.

The daily newspaper Maariv, quoting military sources, said Friday a booby-trap had been placed a week ago by special forces aiming to kill Palestinian militants who were firing mortar bombs from the area at Israeli targets.

Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh, who was deputy defence minister in the previous government, told public radio, "The deaths of five children are not to be taken lightly. An inquiry must be held and the army must give explanations."

Left-wing opposition leader Yossi Sarid of the Meretz party accused Israel's military spokesman of concealing the facts, by saying only that the army had fired no shells on Thursday.

The device, said at the time to have been an unexploded tank shell, exploded Thursday when one of a group of five children kicked it on the way to school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The children, three of whom were said to have been blown to pieces, were to be buried later Friday.