The critically injured father of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed in bloody clashes in Gaza exhorted the world community from his hospital bed on Tuesday to help him avenge his son, reported AFP.
Jamal al-Durra made the appeal in his first interview with an international news agency, a day after undergoing surgery to remove Israeli bullets from his arm and his pelvis that have left his right hand paralyzed for life, said the agency.
"I appeal to the entire world, to all those who have seen this crime (on television) to act and help me avenge my son's death and to put on trial Israel," Durra, 37, told AFP as he struggled to control his emotions.
"I also plan on taking Israel to the international courts and ask that the criminals responsible for the death of my son be punished," he said.
The incident was captured by a French television cameraman and shown all round the world, evoking reactions of shock and horror, including from US President Bill Clinton, according to AFP.
The disturbing film showed Mohamed stricken with fear and crying as his father tried to shield him. The pair were huddled against a wall, desperately trying to take cover from the gun-battle.
The last picture showed the boy slumped over his father dead with Jamal semi-unconscious as a result of being also hit by bullets.
Meanwhile, The Israeli army said on Tuesday an internal investigation showed its troops apparently were responsible for killing Durra, reported Reuters.
"There was an investigation by the major-general of the southern command and apparently (the boy was killed by) Israeli army fire at the Palestinians who were attacking them violently with a great many petrol bombs, rocks and very massive fire," Giora Eiland, head of army operations, told Israel Radio.
Eiland said the soldiers were defending themselves in a street battle with Palestinian forces, which often include civilians, Reuters said.
"This is not the first incident in which civilians were injured, but it has never been intentional...It is known that (Mohammad al-Durra) participated in stone-throwing in the past," Eiland added
Reuters quoted the Israeli army's head of the southern command, Yom Tov Samya, as saying that the boy should not have been at the flashpoint junction in the first place.
"There was much shooting at that minute at the junction from five or six different directions...(Why was) a 12-year-old two meters from a Palestinian position firing heavy weapons on the (Israeli) post?" Samya asked.
But he agreed that father and son, caught between a Palestinian and an Israeli position, may have been shot by Israelis, according to Reuters.
"It could very much be -- this is an estimation -- that a soldier in our position, who has a very narrow field of vision, saw somebody hiding behind a cement block in the direction from which he was being fired at, and he shot in that direction," he said - (Several Sources)
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