TEL AVIV, June 22: Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer on expressed sorrow on Saturday over the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli fire in the West Bank town of Jenin the previous day.

“The defence minister expressed his sorrow over the deaths and said the circumstances in which they died would be investigated,” defence ministry spokesman Yarden Vatikai said.

A report on Israel public radio said Ben Eliezer had ordered the army to investigate the Friday incident and to present him with the results of the investigation.

Palestinian medical sources said four people, all but one of them children, were killed on Friday afternoon when Israeli tanks shelled Jenin’s downtown fruit and vegetable market.

A six-year-old girl and a 50-year-old man were the first to be struck down by the tank shells, they said.

Minutes later, a six-year-old boy and his 12-year-old brother were killed when a shell burst in the same area, they said, adding that about two dozen people were wounded in the firing.

The ministry said in a statement that its tank fire on a group of people who “broke the curfew” in the city, where soldiers were carrying out “house to house searches in search of an explosives lab”.

“An initial inquiry indicates that the force erred in its action,” it said, but added it believed it had killed only three Palestinians. —AFP