JERUSALEM - Nearly nine years after an Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader in Gaza killed at least 13 innocent civilians and led to widespread international condemnation, a government-appointed panel of inquiry concluded Sunday the operation was flawed but the consequences "did not stem from disregard or indifference to human lives."
The panel found the collateral damage was "disproportionate."
But it said its examination of the operation, according to the rules of Israeli and international law, "unequivocally" removed any suspicion the Israelis responsible for the attack committed a criminal offense.
It attributed the deadly results of the operation to "incorrect assessments and mistaken judgment based on an intelligence failure in the collection and transfer of information" between the agencies involved.
In July 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising, an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on the building where Sheik Salah Shehada, a founder of the Islamic militant group Hamas and its chief of operations, was staying.
Israel said it was imperative to kill Shehada because he was directly involved in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks that killed many Israeli civilians.
The airstrike, carried out in a densely packed residential neighborhood of Gaza, caused several buildings to collapse. Shehada's wife and 15-year-old daughter were killed in the attack. Most of the other Palestinian civilians killed were women and children.
In the case of Shehada, the panel found he was a legitimate target for killing. But criticizing the way the operation was carried out, it said those planning it had focused too much on ensuring he was killed and had placed "too little weight on the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians."
