AL QUDS, Nov 23: The Israeli army was in the firing line Friday over an explosion that killed five Palestinian schoolboys, amid reports that the blast was caused by a booby-trap and not by one of the boys kicking an unexploded tank shell, as first thought.

The anger that followed the boys’ death on Thursday led to further tragedy after their funerals on Friday, with a Palestinian teenager shot and killed and two other Palestinians wounded in a firefight with Israeli troops.

The army was tightlipped about the explosion, saying only that it was investigating the cause of the boys’ deaths, which occurred in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis.

But the daily newspaper Maariv quoted military sources Friday as saying that, a week ago, special forces had laid a booby-trap in the wasteland where the blast occurred to kill Palestinian militants who had been firing mortar bombs from the area at Israeli targets.

Those attacks were regularly responded to by Israeli machine-gun and tank fire. That led to the initial conclusion that the boys — all from the same clan and under the age of 14 — had happened on an unexploded shell.

But Maariv quoted its source as saying a special unit of the Israeli army crossed into Palestinian-controlled territory last week and set the booby trap, one typically used by the army.

For his part, Brahim al-Astal, the uncle of two of the victims, reported that he had spotted an Israeli unit, supported by tanks, operating in the area the night before the explosion.

That was corroborated by General Abdel-Razek al-Majaida, chief of the Palestinian security services in the Gaza Strip.

“Unfortunately, it was the children who set off the explosive device, instead of the terrorists who were targeted,” Maariv said.

The booby-trap theory was reinforced by the force of the blast, bigger than a normal tank shell, which blew all five boys to bits.

During the course of the nearly 14-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, several Palestinian militants have died as a result of mysterious explosions.

Israel openly admits targeting people it suspects of planning or carrying out attacks against it.

“In light of this incident, this type of operation, in its entirety, should be reconsidered,” said the unidentified military source quoted by Maariv, implying that the tactic was not new.

For his part, an army spokesman questioned by AFP, Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz, declined any comment on these “allegations.”

In the event, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin bin Eliezer voiced “regret” Friday for the boys’ deaths and announced an inquiry.

A ministry statement said the minister had expressed “regret at the human tragedy which occurred yesterday at Khan Yunis and caused the death of innocent victims.”

The statement said evidence indicated that the explosion which killed the children occurred “on waste ground from where Israeli settlements and military positions had been fired upon on several occasions.”

“An inquiry has been opened by the army into the circumstances of the incident and its conclusions will be submitted to the minister,” it added.

Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh, who was deputy defence minister in the previous government, told public radio “the deaths of five children are not to be taken lightly. An inquiry must be held, and the army must give explanations.”

And Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing opposition Meretz party, accused Israel’s military spokesman of concealing the facts, by saying only that the army had fired no shells on Thursday.—AFP