World News 23-11-2001 Tank Shell Kills Five Schoolboys who: Israeli forces what: Blamed for deaths of five boys killed by tank shell where: GAZA when: Yesterday snippet: "Five Palestinian boys were killed on their way to school yesterday when one of them kicked an unexploded shell," reports The Mirror. "The victims - including two pairs of brothers - were aged between seven and 14." Fourteen year-old Mohammed al-Astal, his six year-old brother Akram and three of their cousins, aged 11 and 12, "made their way along the high sand dune that separates the cinder block homes of the Palestinians from the Israeli flag that marks the illegal Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal," says The Guardian`s Suzanne Goldenberg. "Within an instant," she continues, "all five were dead, blown to pieces in a single explosion that spewed body parts and shards of metal for 30 yards through sand dunes, greenhouses, and sycamore trees." "We hold the Israeli government and the Israeli army fully responsible for the ugly murder of innocent children because they continue to fire these bombs and shells at residential areas," said Palestinian commander Col Khaled Abu al-Ula, quoted in The Telegraph. But an Israeli government spokesman, while expressing regret, suggested that the Palestinians were using the deaths of the children "for propaganda purposes, as both sides prepare for the arrival in the Middle East of two senior US envoys," reports the BBC. [... more]

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