The Israeli army issued a statement yesterday expressing "sorrow" for the accidental killing of a Palestinian woman and her two children by IDF tank fire near Jenin. Though the army said the soldiers in the tank had opened fire "in accordance with the rules of engagement," further investigation revealed that the tank had not run over a land mine as originally believed.

Army spokesmen said today that one of the tank's treads had disengaged, causing a loud noise that the soldiers thought to be the blast of an explosive device. One soldier was lightly injured, and his comrades opened fire on suspicious figures fleeing the area, killing the three Palestinians.

The statement issued yesterday by the IDF Spokesman said the army "regrets the harming of innocent civilians" and stressed that an investigation had been launched.

The incident occurred early Sunday afternoon when an IDF Merkava tank was operating near the Bezeq base, east of Jenin, in efforts to "demonstrate an Israeli presence in the area," according to Yediot Aharonot. The newspaper reported that the tank was damaged by an explosive device planted on the road in advance, and consisting of several kilograms of explosives.

Soldiers in the tank and in an armored personnel carrier accompanying it immediately opened fire at the fleeing figures, assumed to be the terrorists who had prepared the explosives. The soldiers' gunfire at the figures was due to known terrorists' procedures that utilize the initial confusion following a bomb attack on a tank for a full-front assault.

On March 14, three Israeli soldiers were killed and two others were wounded when a large explosive device detonated under their Merkava tank as a convoy of Israeli civilian and military vehicles was traveling on the Karni-Netzarim road in the Gaza Strip. In February, three soldiers were killed and a Merkava tank destroyed in what was apparently a well-planned two-stage ambush near the Netzarim junction.

Palestinian witnesses said the soldiers fired indiscriminately yesterday at Fatima Ibrahim Zakarna, 30, and her two children Basel, 5, and Abir, 3, killing them instantly. One Palestinian said the three, residents of Kabatiya, were several hundred meters from the tank and posed no threat to the soldiers.

The soldiers rushed to offer medical assistance to the woman and children, but they were pronounced dead soon after being transferred to the Jenin hospital.

Despite the fact that the IDF gave full backing to the soldiers' actions, military sources told Yediot Aharonot that "in an area so crowded, the [soldiers'] gunfire may have been a bit too hasty."

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