Israel denies role in beach blast

JERUSALEM - Israel has denied responsibility for an explosion on a Gaza beach last week that killed seven Palestinian civilians and led militant group Hamas to call off a 16-month-old truce.

The chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Dan Halutz, said an investigation into the timing of Israeli shelling of Gaza and the shrapnel taken from victims showed his forces were not to blame for Friday's blast.

"We can say, surely, that the IDF is not responsible for the incident," Halutz said, flanked by Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

"We checked each and every shell that was fired from the sea, the air and from the artillery on the land and we found out that we can track each and every one according to a timetable and according to the accuracy of where they hit the ground.

"We are very sorry for the deaths of the seven Palestinians, but that does not mean that we are responsible," he said.

A spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian Interior Ministry described Israel's denial of responsibility as a fabrication.

"This is an Israeli lie and an attempt to escape moral responsibility for the massacre of a completely innocent family," Khalid Abu Hilal said. "The Israeli denial is an additional crime."

No clear explanation was provided for what caused the explosion, which killed several members of the same family, but the head of the investigation, Major-General Meir Califi, suggested Palestinian militants might have been responsible.

"It can be that a terror operative placed something in this area in order to prevent operations by our forces...these are things we are not saying for certain," he said.

An Israeli military source told Reuters it had intelligence that militant Islamist group Hamas had placed explosives along the Gaza beach shore line after the raid to discourage further Israeli military incursions.

No investigation

Halutz said there was no possibility of an international investigation into the explosion.

Hamas, which has run the Palestinian Authority since its election victory in January, blamed Israel for the explosion, which occurred on a day of heavy shelling of the Gaza Strip.

There has been a surge in violence between Israel and the Palestinians since the blast, with Hamas firing scores of rockets into Israel and Israel retaliating with air strikes.

Eleven Palestinians, including two children, were killed by an Israeli missile strike on a van carrying militants and rockets in Gaza on Tuesday.

The aftermath of Friday's blast was caught on film and showed a distraught eight-year-old girl searching for her dead father among shrapnel and dead bodies on the beach. The images have been re-broadcast around the Arab world, causing outrage.

Palestinian human rights groups that have carried out their own investigations say it is clear from the crater caused by the blast that Israeli artillery shells were responsible.

An investigator for international rights group Human Rights Watch told reporters in Gaza earlier that the evidence pointed to Israel but he had to leave the door open to the possibility that something else might have caused the blast.

Israel is keen to distance itself from the incident as it tries to calm the threat of a resurgence in militant attacks.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed his condolences over the deaths, but did not admit any responsibility.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, on a visit to Europe, reinforced the military's line on Tuesday, saying it was possible Palestinian militants were responsible.

- REUTERS