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Palestinians mourn deaths from Israeli airstrike; Islamic Jihad vows revenge. (AP)
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| By Associated Press June 14, 2006 |
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For the second time in five days, Israel expressed regret over the deaths of innocent Palestinians after eight civilians were killed in a Gaza airstrike along with two militants, including the Islamic Jihad's top rocket launcher.
Two children were among the dead in Tuesday's attack. The military said the civilians crowded around a stricken van in the seconds before a second missile struck, too late to divert it.
Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the airstrike "state terrorism." Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas demanded an international inquiry "to investigate the brutal crimes and the bloody Israeli massacres of our people."
Israel said the strike was aimed at militants transporting a Grad rocket to be fired at Israel. The Grad, also known as Katyusha, has a longer range and larger warhead than the homemade rockets the militants have been using to pelt Israel.
Israel was firing artillery at northern Gaza on Friday around the time of a deadly explosion on the Gaza beach, when eight members of a family were killed. Palestinians charged that a shell fired by Israel killed them, but on Tuesday Israel presented results of its own inquiry and claimed it was not to blame.
The inquiry concluded that the blast was caused by an explosive buried in the sand, but it was not clear how it got there or whether it might have been an old Israeli shell. The report did not address how an explosive might have come to be buried on the beach. Israel has been claiming that Hamas militants planted the device to set off against Israeli commandos.
Maher Makdad of the Fatah movement rejected the Israeli claims. "I only heard lies," he said. "I also heard an insistence on continuing these practices, because if they admitted their mistake, we could understand that they are ready to change their policies."
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz denied all responsibility. Addressing a Tel Aviv news conference to present the findings of the inquiry, Peretz said, "We have enough findings to back up the suspicion that the intention to describe this as an Israeli event is simply not correct."
Even before Peretz could present the findings of the inquiry into the Friday blast, he had to express regret for the deaths of innocent Palestinians in the Tuesday airstrike.
However, he blamed the militants for operating in residential areas and appealed to Palestinians to keep them out.
The smoking, shattered yellow van stood in the middle of a main Gaza street after the attack, puddles of blood around it.
Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the death of its chief rocket launcher, Hammed Wadiya. Another militant was also killed.
Of the eight dead civilians, two were children and three were medical workers on their way to tend to people wounded by the first missile.
Screaming ambulances carrying the 10 dead and 32 wounded raced toward Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. "He's dead," yelled out one medical worker as teams removed a victim from the ambulance. Other rescue workers carried inside a dead boy, the top of his head torn off by the blast.
Doctors, hard-pressed to handle the large number of casualties, treated some on the bloodied floor. Three lifeless bodies, drenched in blood, also lay on the floor.
At the hospital's morgue, angry women shouted, "Death to Israel, Death to the occupation!" One Islamic Jihad militant went inside the morgue, put his hands on one of the dead bodies, then smeared the blood on his rifle.
The Israeli military operation overshadowed internal Palestinian conflicts. At a meeting late Tuesday, Abbas and Haniyeh agreed to start a weeklong series of meetings between their factions to try to reach agreement over a document negotiated by Palestinian prisoners in Israel, implicitly recognizing the Jewish state.
Abbas has called a July 26 referendum on the document if talks fail.
In an AP interview, Fatah Gaza leader Mohammed Dahlan heaped criticism on Hamas, which took over the Palestinian government after trouncing Fatah in January elections.
Dahlan, a Fatah member of parliament, repulsed charges that Fatah is trying to stir up opposition. "Hamas is looking for someone to blame for their failure," he said. "Since the government took office I am looking through the rubble for one achievement, and I can't find anything."
Clashes between forces loyal to Fatah and Hamas have become an almost daily affair.
In an apparently unrelated incident, Palestinian police in the West Bank city of Ramallah shot and killed a Palestinian who failed to stop at a roadblock. Relatives rioted at the local hospital.
In the West Bank town of Jenin, Israeli forces shot and killed a militant early Wednesday. The military said soldiers opened fire on an armed man during an arrest raid.
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