Girls' Killing 'Reasonable'

Aljazeera
Thursday, February 05, 2009
05:09 Mecca time, 02:09 GMT

Israel: Girls' killing 'reasonable'

The Israeli military has admitted shelling the home of a Palestinian doctor during its Gaza offensive and killing three of his daughters, but said its soldiers' actions were "reasonable" considering the circumstances.

Dr Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a 55-year-old gynaecologist trained in Israeli hospitals, was giving Israel's Channel 10 his daily phone account from inside the war zone in Gaza when three of his daughters were killed in the attack.

The military said on Wednesday that an inquiry into the January 16 incident found that troops fired two shells at the doctor's home after fighters fired from the area.

The report said soldiers came under fire from a building close to Abu
al-Aish's, and then ''suspicious figures were identified in the upper level of Dr Abu al-Aish's house and were thought to be spotters who directed the Hamas sniper and mortar fire".

Abu al-Aish, who has worked for years in Israeli hospitals, has denied there were any fighters at his house.

The report said soldiers stopped firing after hearing screams from the shelled building.

The military expressed sadness at the deaths but did not admit to a mistake in identification.

Instead, it said in the report, ''considering the constraints of the battle scene, the amount of threats that endangered the force, and the intensity of fighting in the area, the forces' action and the decision to fire toward the building were reasonable".[]

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