MADRID: A Spanish judge said yesterday he will keep investigating seven current and former Israeli officials over a 2002 air force bombing in Gaza that killed a suspected Hamas fighter and 14 civilians.
Prosecutors last month urged Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain’s National Court to suspend the inquiry on the grounds Israel was still investigating the attack. But Andreu rejected the request yesterday, saying he has found no evidence of such an investigation in Israel.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the decision “ridiculous” and groundless. A Palestinian human rights group hailed it as a “great victory.” Andreu first agreed to open the case in January at the request of Palestinian relatives of victims of the attack. Nine children were among the dead.
The seven being investigated are Dan Halutz, who commanded Israel’s air force at the time of the attack; Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, then defense minister and now the minister of trade; Doron Almog, commander of the air force in Gaza at the time; Giora Eiland, then Israel’s national security adviser; Michael Herzog, who was with the Defense Ministry; Moshe Ya’alon, then chief of staff of the Israeli military; and Abraham Dichter, then director of Shin Bet.
