Highly placed security sources acknowledge that the explosive device that killed five Palestinian boys on their way to school Thursday morning may have been an IDF mine intended for terrorists operating in the area near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer ordered an investigation to determine the circumstances of the tragedy.

Israeli minister Ephraim Sneh (Labor) called for a "courageous and fair" investigation. "If something is out of order on our side, then we must strip away any masks and maybe determine if someone acted improperly or recklessly," he told Israel Radio Friday morning. But he stressed that the accident could not be torn from the context of the ongoing guerilla war against Israel.

Opposition leader MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz) attacked the apparent placement of the explosive device. "That's a targeted hit? Do you know who will pass by the area? It's a residential area. What kind of bombs do you place in an area where schoolchildren pass by?" He demanded a complete investigation and demanded disciplinary action against the officer responsible for ordering the laying of the mine. "Someone in the army must pay with his head," he said.

But MK Zvi Hendel, a resident of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, rejected criticism of the IDF, saying that Israel has no choice but to wage a war against terrorists, and that innocent civilians were sometimes victims of the conflict, Army Radio reported. "All Israeli actions are taken out of self-defense, while Arafat and his cohorts do everything possible to indiscriminately kill innocent citizens, women, and children," Hendel said.

Palestinian sources had initially claimed that the boys were killed by Israeli tank fire, a charge immediately denied by IDF commanders. However, this morning a senior IDF official called the deaths a "grave mishap" and agreed that the army should thoroughly investigate the blast. A government spokesman expressed regret over the deaths of the youngsters but said the circumstances were unclear.

Palestinian security forces said the device exploded when one of the boys apparently kicked it, Israel Radio reported. The children killed were all from the same clan, Palestinian sources said. They named the five as Muhammad Naim al-Astal, 14, Amr al-Astal, 13, Anis Idris al-Astal, 12, Muhammad Sultan al-Astal 12, and Akram al-Astal, 6.

Sufian Abu Jamea, 15, said he was about 300 yards away when the he heard the explosion, the Associated Press reported. "I turned to see from where it came. I saw parts of a leg flying in the air. Then I ran away,'' he said.

Abu Jamea also denied earlier Palestinian claims of Israeli tank fire, saying there was no shooting at the time. The blast went off less than a mile from the United Nations-sponsored elementary school the children attended.

Earlier, Palestinian security commander Col. Khaled Abu Ola charged that an Israeli tank positioned near Netzer Hazani shot at Khan Yunis and hit the children next to their school. The IDF insisted that no tanks or troops had opened fire in that area of the Gaza Strip at the time. "There was unequivocally no shooting by our forces and certainly no tank fire," said a source in the IDF's Gaza Strip division.

The bodies of the five children were taken to Nasser Hospital in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. Hundreds of Palestinians gathered outside, calling for revenge against Israel, ynet reported. The Voice of Palestine declared in its broadcasts that the killing was a "new Israeli crime," a charged echoed by MK Ahmad Tibi (Ta-al), who said that those responsible for the killing should face justice, if not in an Israeli court, then in the International Court of War Crimes in the Hague.

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