Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff; Ha'aretz, 14.06.06

The Israeli effort to acquit the Israel Defense Forces of having killed seven Palestinian civilians on a Gaza beach Friday was placed in an ironic light yesterday, as additional civilians were killed in a missile strike in Gaza City. Israeli officials announced last night that the Palestinians killed on the beach did not die from a blast caused by an artillery shell fired at them accidentally but (apparently) from a Palestinian explosive. But what difference will that make if, at the same time, the IDF kills a similar number of civilians during an attack on an Islamic Jihad Katyusha-firing cell?

Israel is engaged in long-distance combat in the Gaza Strip, against terror cells deep in the heart of the civilian population. Nearly every time Israel acts against them, there is a not insignificant chance that it will also harm civilians.

The attempt to wage a political public relations battle to justify Israel's moves is doomed to failure. It appears that, in any case, the average observer in the West sees the post-disengagement conflict here as a bloodbath in which assassinations are indistinguishable from acts of revenge. Israel makes a distinction between its approach -we attack terrorists and, as an incidental result, Palestinian civilians occasionally get hurt - and the Palestinian terrorists' approach of targeting civilians. But this differentiation falls on apathetic ears.

Nonetheless, it is appropriate to examine what took place yesterday. An Islamic Jihad Katyusha-launching cell was traveling in a vehicle on Gaza's main road, apparently on its way to launch the rockets toward Ashkelon. Katyushas are better weapons than Qassams in range, accuracy and degree of lethal capability. Israel is worried by the Katyushas because they expand the range of combat. Many more communities are located within the Katyusha's range of fire than that of the Qassams, including strategic infrastructure facilities in the Ashkelon area.

The cell attacked yesterday was hit by the second pair of rockets that the air force fired at it. There is a dispute over a critical point: How much time passed between the two pairs of missiles (a minute, according to the IDF; four minutes, according to the Palestinians.) What is known is that the second pair killed the seven civilians, who gathered around the vehicle. The IDF says: We didn't see the civilians. They were noticed only at the last minute, by which point it was too late to divert the missile.

The decision to send the second pair of missiles was a tough one, between the almost certain death of Palestinian civilians and prevention of a terror attack against Israeli civilians. The IDF officers who made that choice yesterday received full backing from the defense minister and the chief of staff, since they took responsibility that was theirs to take. But when you tally up the civilians killed by artillery fire in the northern Gaza Strip over the last two months, the ones killed in the Gaza coast explosion and the ones killed in yesterday's 'targeted prevention' (as the army calls it), the final result is dozens of civilians killed at a time when not a single Israeli has been killed as a result of terror coming from the Strip.

The total losses have a major influence on what is going on in Gaza, a fact to which the Israeli side does not pay sufficient attention. Palestinians in Gaza yesterday could be heard calling for revenge time after time. The endless chain of funerals has mitigated any desire for political negotiations.