'Unacceptable'

Egyptian officials "strongly condemned" the killings. Reem Nafie reports

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'It's a farce' Parliament blasts Israel Deliberate act?

"Why should three innocent border policemen die while performing their duty on the Egyptian-Gaza border?" Every Egyptian, from the general public to top government officials, had that question on their mind when news spread of the incident that took place last Thursday at around 3am.

Three Egyptian border policemen who were patrolling the Egyptian side of the Gaza border were killed when Israeli troops fired at them. Israel later claimed that it had "mistaken the Egyptians for a group of Palestinian militants who were planting explosives on the border".

The three policemen -- Hani El- Naggar, Amer Abu Bakr Amer and Mohamed Abdel-Fatah Rabi' -- were immediately transported to hospitals in Rafah, but they could not be saved.

A mass of formal apologies soon ensued, as Israel appeared to exert efforts to make up for the "mistake". The apologies began with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's phone call to President Hosni Mubarak. The Israeli press seemed to believe that "President Mubarak accepted Sharon's apology for this tragic accident."

No such confirmation of the acceptance was issued on Egypt's part.

The phone call was followed by an appearance by Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Al-Jazeera satellite channel, who said, in Arabic, that "from the bottom of our hearts, we are sorry".

Soon thereafter, Colonel David Menachem, Israel's acting commander in Gaza, told reporters that the Israeli soldiers had targeted "terrorists" who had slipped into the narrow corridor, known as the Philadelphi route, in the dark, and were laying a mine. However, because the Egyptian soldiers were only "200 metres" away from the terrorists they were mistakenly shot instead.

A subsequent statement issued by the Israeli army said they regretted the event, and that the "area [where the shooting occurred] was a central point for arms smuggling, attacks and many infiltration attempts". Israel has often claimed that the Philadelphi route is an area used by the Palestinians to dig tunnels from Egyptian Rafah into the Gaza Strip, and use it to smuggle arms and plant bombs.

In response, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement on Thursday morning that condemned the "regrettable incident" and requested a "full and comprehensive investigation into the circumstances". Israel responded to the Egyptian request by saying they were conducting an investigation, in an effort to "ease the tension" and defuse the Egyptian anger that had erupted as a result.

Nevertheless, the preliminary findings -- announced by Lieutenant- General Moshe Yaalon on Israeli Army Radio on Friday -- seemed hardly convincing. Yaalon said the investigations suggested there was a lapse in coordination between the tank that fired at the Egyptian soldiers, and the commander or "look out post" that gave the order to shoot. Yaalon recommended that better communication between Israeli and Egyptian forces in the border zone be established, to help prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

Top Egyptian officials issued statements indicating that both the "mistake" and "apology" were unacceptable. Osama El-Baz, the president's top political adviser, described the Israeli findings as unreasonable, and warned that "Egyptian policemen at the border who are performing their duty to preserve security and peace should not be harmed."

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit made it clear that a "repeat of this type of incident" would not be tolerated, and that "Israeli soldiers with a greater degree of discipline must be chosen so that they don't open fire randomly, leading to the complication of relations with Egypt." Abul-Gheit also said that the way Israeli forces on the border act show that "the fingers of those soldiers are on the trigger; therefore, I was expecting this kind of incident."

The incident's timing was very sensitive, considering that Abul-Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman had been scheduled to visit Israel on 24 November, to engage in talks regarding Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip in the post-Arafat era

Following the incident, however, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement indicating that the visit had been postponed; no new date was set, leaving matters vague until "sometime next month".

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said that "mistakes" like these were a "new element added to the deteriorating situation in the region".