An official IDF source confirmed Amir Orens' 21 May story this afternoon to IMRA that two Palestinian children who died in the Rafah procession incident were murdered by Palestinian gunmen and that the IDF photographed the shooting.

The official IDF source explained that the pictures have not been released to the media because information derived from the photographs would compromise security in the field at this time.

The following is a repeat of the excerpts from Oren's original article:

Inside Track / Rafah is a nightmare

By Amir Oren Haaretz 21 May 2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430200.html

... When the procession with armed men in its midst set out in the direction of the forces, (the commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier General Shmuel) Zakaii tried to speak with the community leaders in Rafah. The head of the Liaison and Coordination Administration, Colonel Poli Mordecai, phoned Nasser Saraj, the head of the Civil Committee in the city. Had the Liaison and Coordination Administration sufficed, they would not have needed the tank commander. Saraj, a respected individual, formerly the director-general of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Palestinian Authority, listened to Colonel Mordecai's pleas, but took no steps to prevent the disaster.

When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question them), they were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza reported yesterday that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as to why the army has refrained from publishing them.