GAZA CITY, Jan 3: Palesti-nian security and medical officers accused Israeli troops Thursday of purposefully beating and stabbing to death three teenagers after hitting them with tank shells four nights ago near a Jewish settlement in the northern Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli occupation troops near Beit Lahia stabbed and beat until dead the three teenagers who were injured by tank shells,” said a statement from the office of General Abdel Razeq al-Majeida, the head of Palestinian security for the Gaza Strip.

“It’s a huge crime in this dangerous and criminal war against international human rights,” the statement said.

The office said a medical examination at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City confirmed the victims had been stabbed while alive. The Israeli forces could have saved the lives of the three, it added.

Dr Moaway Hassanein, the Palestinian Authority’s head of casualty and emergency services, said all three men had “knife wounds and were beaten.”

The Israeli army denied there had been any stabbing.

“The injuries were sustained in the context of combat. There was no willful damage to the bodies,” said army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal.

More than 3,000 people attended Thursday the funeral in Gaza City for the slain teenagers — Mohamed Lubad, Mohamed el-Madhul and Ahmad Banat, who lived in Gaza City, aged 17, 16 and 15 respectively — whose bodies were returned overnight. They were killed near Beit Lahia.

Military sources initially said the three had opened fire on one of its armoured vehicles, but then retracted that statement, saying they had been armed with knives.—AFP