Israel Will Probe Palestinian Deaths

Israel's defense minister has ordered a speedy investigation into the army's killing of 12 Palestinians, including at least eight civilians, over a period of four days.

The minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, appointed a general to head the inquiry. He asked the army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, to present by Friday "operative findings to prevent such unfortunate mishaps in the future."

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat demanded that soldiers responsible for killing civilians be brought to justice, but said that based on previous inquiries, he did not believe the investigation would lead to disciplining soldiers.

"The calls for an investigation are meant for media consumption because we have never heard of any result of these panels created after the killing of Palestinian civilians," said Erekat. "We place full responsibility on the Israeli government for these crimes and this bloodletting."

The Israeli government also had pressure from within by politicians calling for an investigation.

"There must be no impression of indifference to human life. Hurting the guilty hurts terror, but hurting the innocent increases terror," said Ephraim Sneh, Israeli Transport Minister and a member of the Labor Party, in an interview on Israel's Army Radio.

Also Monday, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot is reporting that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has told his Cabinet that if Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat leaves the West Bank, he would not be allowed to return. Ben-Eliezer reportedly opposes the idea of blocking Arafat's return.

Also Monday, an Israeli source confirmed a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz that between 150 and 200 al-Qaida operatives, including several senior commanders, have settled in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in Lebanon, with Syria's permission.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the report and said the information came from Israeli and Western intelligence services. But Lebanese security officials denied there were al-Qaida activists in the refugee camp.

The recent killings of Palestinian civilians by army fire have sparked debate in Israel over the use of force, and Yaalon, who was appointed army chief less than two months ago, has come under criticism.

In interviews and speeches, Yaalon has described Palestinian militants as a cancer-like threat to Israel's existence, and said Israel must win the war against them at all costs if it wants to maintain its deterrence.

Ben-Eliezer, meanwhile, has apologized for the killings of civilians in recent days, including a 6-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and two teen-agers.

Several Palestinian officials demanded an end to recent Israeli-Palestinian security talks on a gradual cease-fire.

Early Thursday, Israeli troops fired a tank shell at a home in the Gaza Strip, killing a mother, her two grown sons and another relative. The army said at the time the troops saw suspicious figures crawling in an area off-limits to civilians and opened fire. It apologized for the killings. The victims' relatives said troops fired randomly from tanks toward farmers sitting under a fig tree.

On Saturday, an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car in the West Bank town of Tubas, targeting a senior militant. Instead, a lower-level militant, two teen-agers who were in the car with him and two young children who were playing nearby were killed. The target of the attack escaped.

Four more Palestinians were killed early Sunday. The army said the four were moving in a field farmed by Jews, and soldiers - who were warned that four Palestinians would try to carry out an attack in the area - fired and killed them. Palestinians say the four were laborers killed in cold blood.

Ben-Eliezer's order that the investigation be finished before the weekend was interpreted as a sign of his displeasure with Yaalon's performance. Israeli officials, including President Moshe Katsav, urged the army to investigate the deaths.

The recent deaths follow the July killing of 14 civilians, among them nine children, in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip. In that incident, the air force targeted senior Hamas militant, Salah Shehadeh, and dropped a one-ton bomb on his home. He was also killed in the attack.

The operation was harshly criticized, including by the United States. But Israel's air force commander, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, defended the strike, saying Shehadeh was responsible for carrying out several attacks against Israelis.

The Islamic group Hamas is responsible for a series of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed hundreds of civilians in the past two years.

In another development Monday, Hana Siniora, a Palestinian Christian newspaper publisher and a long-time supporter of non-violent protest, said he was appointed to be the Palestinian Authority's new representative in Washington. He said he would officially begin his posting in October and would focus on improving tattered Palestinian-American relations.