06 October 2004	Wednesday	20 Shaban 1425

TEL AVIV, Oct 5: The Israeli army on Tuesday backed away from an accusation that Palestinian militants used a UN ambulance to transport a rocket to be fired at Israel, a charge that raised a stir within the world body.

A blurry video taken by a military drone aircraft of the alleged incident has been removed from the army's Web site amid "an internal discussion of the authenticity of our assessment", a military source said.

"The Israel Defence Forces are reviewing the analysis of the footage in which UNRWA vehicles are seen involved in suspicious activity in the combat zone in Gaza," a terse army statement said. UNRWA is the UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees.

The video showed men running toward a vehicle with "UN" painted on its roof. One of them carried a long thin object that Israeli officials said was a Qassam rocket but which UNRWA vigorously insisted was a portable stretcher.

"(Israel's) finding is not conclusive, there's now some doubt within the military as to whether it was really a missile or not," a security source said.

"In the footage you see a person lifting the object very easily into the ambulance, which indicates it was not heavy enough to be a missile. We can't say for sure either way yet. An official statement will come in due course," the source said. --Reuters