Ahlul Bayt News Agency ; The Israeli army's killing of three Palestinian civilians at the weekend, among them an elderly Gazan and his grandson, was a “mistake”, a senior commander admitted on Tuesday.
Late on Sunday, three civilians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun were martyred by a burst of Israeli tank fire -- a 91-year-old man, his 17-year-old grandson and another man, 20.
At the time, the Israeli army claimed troops had fired towards a group of suspects who were attempting to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at them. But Brigadier General Ayal Eisenberg on Tuesday admitted the soldiers had made a mistake. "The civilians killed by our soldiers' fire ... were not involved in any terrorist operation," Eisenberg told army radio.
He said troops had seen one of the three picking up an RPG that had been left on the ground and had mistakenly assumed they were a group of militants. "Our soldiers identified a civilian who was picking up an RPG and, thinking he was going to fire at them, opened fire" in his direction, he added.
Eisenberg said it was only after the incident that they realized the three were not involved in any militant activity.
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