Spain investigates claims of Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza

A Spanish judge today opened preliminary investigations into claims that a bomb attack on Gaza in 2002 warranted the prosecution of a former Israeli defence minister and six senior military officers for crimes against humanity.

Judge Fernando Andreu agreed to ­investigate the deaths of 15 Palestinians, mostly babies and children, who died when the Israeli air force bombed a target in Gaza City.

He named the former defence minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, the former defence chief-of-staff Moshe Ya'alon, the former air force chief Dan Halutz, and four ­others.

Andreu, an investigating magistrate at the national court in Madrid, said evidence presented to his court showed the seven men may have committed the sort of crimes against humanity which Spain was bound by international laws to prosecute.

The magistrate accepted that the aim of the 2002 attack had been to kill Saleh ­Shehadeh, who he described as a suspected leader of "the terrorist group called Hamas"....