By
The Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel - The Israeli army reversed itself yesterday and said Palestinian gunmen, not Israeli soldiers, probably killed the 12-year-old boy whose death in a firefight was captured by a TV camera and became a symbol, for Palestinians, of Israel's heavy-handed response to their uprising.
An inquiry ordered by the commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Maj. Gen. Yom Tov Samia, found that it was "quite plausible that the boy was hit by Palestinian bullets in the course of an exchange of fire."
The findings came nearly two months after Israel's chief of military operations said the shots that killed Mohammed Aldura and seriously wounded his father, Jamal, were "apparently" fired by Israelis.
At a news conference yesterday, Samia said the conclusion of his just-completed inquiry was based on measurements, bullet angles, and evidence that the Palestinian boy was hit by a volley of gunfire while Israeli soldiers were firing only single shots in that direction.
In response, Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi charged that the inquiry results were a "falsified version of reality (that) blames the victims."
Viewers around the world were shocked by footage shot Sept. 30 of the terrified boy and his father cowering in front of a wall amid a furious exchange of fire at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip.
A camera held by a TV reporter from the France 2 network showed the father gesturing frantically to try to stop the shooting, as his child screamed in terror. Footage then captured the moment when the boy, hit by bullets, slumped into his father's lap and died.
The incident, two days after the start of the clashes, fueled international condemnation of Israel and helped Palestinians win a U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing excessive use of force.
The boy's death also reignited a bitter and long-running Israeli-Palestinian debate over who bears responsibility when Palestinian children are killed or injured in street clashes: Israeli soldiers or Palestinian adults.
In the case of Mohammed, it was never entirely clear who fired the fatal shots, though Palestinians blamed the Israelis.
Three days after his death, chief of military operations Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland said: "We conducted an investigation, and as far as we understand, the shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers."
The subsequent military inquiry was criticized as flawed even before it was completed. Samia's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, called the inquiry a private initiative. One of the reconstructions used faulty measurements and had to be repeated.
Samia acknowledged that the inquiry was flawed by lack of material evidence. There was no autopsy, meaning the deadly bullet could not be recovered, and the setting no longer existed a week later - Samia's forces destroyed buildings there to clear the area of cover used by Palestinian gunmen.
While the investigation was under way, Samia fired an engineer, Yosef Duriel, after Duriel gave an on-camera interview saying the inquiry would prove that the Palestinians killed the boy on purpose for propaganda reasons.
Yesterday, Samia refused to endorse Duriel's theory and showed no evidence that could back it up. He would not even say that he was sure the Palestinians were responsible.
But at the news conference, Samia screened TV film that showed a Palestinian with an assault rifle take up a position behind the boy and his father and shoot a volley toward the Israeli position.
Samia quoted from TV interviews with Jamal Aldura, saying that his son was shot in the back. Samia said there were no Israeli soldiers behind the boy.
Aldura, in Jordan for treatment of his wounds, hotly rejected the inquiry's findings. "Everybody knows the truth," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "The bullets of the Zionists are the bullets that killed my son."
Samia complained that France 2 did not turn over its raw material. France 2 bureau chief Charles Enderlin said that at the army's request, he prepared a cassette, but it took the army three weeks to pick it up.
Dismissing the inquiry's findings, Enderlin said he trusted the report from his cameraman, who said all the gunfire at the boy and his father came from the Israelis.
The inquiry was directed by Menahem Shahaf, who said he is a physicist who has worked for the Israeli Defense Ministry. He approached the army with the idea of an inquiry after a newspaper turned down his proposal to sponsor it.
Last week Shahaf approached AP with an offer to make what he called "astonishing" findings public on a basis of exclusivity. The offer was not accepted.
