Army Finds No Fault in Deaths of 12 Palestinians

An internal army investigation on Friday cleared Israeli soldiers who killed 12 Palestinians in three incidents last week, prompting angry Palestinian complaints of a whitewash. None of those killed carried firearms.

The report said that in two cases--the deaths of four farmers in the Gaza Strip and the deaths of four quarry laborers in the West Bank--the Palestinians were moving in a suspicious manner in areas that are off limits to civilians and that soldiers acted according to regulations when they opened fire.

In the third incident, in which two Palestinian children and two teenagers were killed in a missile attack on suspected militants, one of the missiles missed the target, apparently because of a technical problem, the report said.

Military officials said that the quarry workers had been masked and armed with an ax and that there was “a possibility” they were en route to an attack. The teens killed in the missile attack were accomplices of the wanted militiamen, the officials said. Palestinians have insisted all 12 were civilians.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, said it was “shameful for Israel not to bring to justice those who kill innocent children, innocent mothers in cold blood.”

Also Friday, Israel imposed curfews on most West Bank towns and froze Palestinian travel to keep out militants on the Jewish New Year, confining more than 630,000 Palestinians to their homes.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli army vehicles surrounded the central town of Deir al Balah and arrested a local militant leader, security sources and witnesses said.

They said Maher Bashir, a local leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group, was detained along with two of his brothers.

In the West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli soldiers raided a militant hide-out and shot Kamal Silawi of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and another militant, Samir Qandil.

The army said that it had spotted the two armed men during an Israeli-imposed curfew and that they were shot during a battle.