The secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was "deeply disturbed," he said in an official statement on Friday, at the killing of women and children picnicking on a Gaza beach, committed "reportedly by Israeli forces."

Eyeless in Gaza, Mr. Annan carelessly relies on heart-wrenching press photographs juxtaposing Israeli shelling with a child crying over her dead mother's body. Israel, meanwhile, fears inflaming the region where myths about the supposed Jewish thirst for innocent Arab blood quickly translates into a war cry for billions of Muslims around the world...

...Now the Israel Defense Forces, while quick to express regret over the death of seven members of the Ghalia family on the Gaza beach on Friday, vows to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. "Our expression of sorrow does not imply taking responsibility for the incident," the IDF's chief of staff, Dan Halutz, stressed on Saturday.

Investigators have tracked all shells fired during the Friday Israeli raid against Gaza rocket launching sites. They have concluded that IDF air and naval firing did not land where the deaths occurred, while a single artillery shell has yet to be accounted for. The IDF, however, does not exclude the possibility that the deadly explosion's source was a land mine, put in by Palestinian Arabs fearing an Israeli invasion, or a locally made bomb.

The Palestinian Authority has refused to cooperate with the IDF's investigation. Tell-tale shrapnel hitting those among the 70 injured who were transferred to Israeli hospitals has been painstakingly removed by Gaza medics as key evidence. "Some in the Palestinian Authority would rather see this as a propaganda tool," said Israeli Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Mark Regev...