God Help Us All ... there's got to be a better way

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli missile strike on a van in Gaza carrying militants and rockets killed 11 Palestinians, nine of them civilians, on Tuesday in the deadliest such attack in nearly four years.

The air strike signaled that Israel would not flinch from targeting rocket squads in densely populated areas in spite of an outcry over the deaths of seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach on Friday in a blast militants blamed on Israeli shellfire.
...
Israel said it targeted the Gaza van because it was carrying powerful armaments.

"The car that we hit was loaded with Katyusha rockets and launchers and they were on their way to launch those Katyusha rockets at Israel," an army spokeswoman said after the attack in the eastern outskirts of Gaza City.

Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles. The first hit the vehicle, causing it to crash into the pavement. A second hit as a crowd gathered and rescuers arrived.

Hospital officials said nine civilians, including two children and two medics, were killed as well as two Islamic Jihad militants. About 30 people were wounded.

-------

ISRAELI INQUIRY

Chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Dan Halutz, said an investigation of the timing of Israeli shelling of Gaza beach and the shrapnel taken from victims showed that his forces were not to blame for Friday's blast.

"We can say, surely, that the IDF is not responsible for the incident," Halutz told a news conference, flanked by Peretz.

No clear explanation was provided for what did cause the explosion, but the head of the investigation, Major General Meir Califi, suggested Palestinian militants might have been responsible.

A spokesman for the Hamas-led Interior Ministry described Israel's denial of responsibility as a fabrication. "The Israeli denial is an additional crime," Khalid Abu Hilal told Reuters.

Blaming Israel for Friday's explosion, Hamas declared an end to a 16-month truce with the Jewish state. The group, dedicated to Israel's destruction, was responsible for nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.