Israel closes probe into deadly Gaza beach bombing

The Israeli army said on Thursday that it was dropping proceedings over a July 16 bombing of a Gaza beach where four children were murdered during last summer's war on the besieged enclave that turned genocidal when the Israeli army resorted to the mass killings of the Palestinian civilians in a futile bid to crush the resolve of their resistance fighters.

"The... case has been closed following the completion of a criminal investigation," the child-killer army said in a statement.

The statement added that two other cases involving Palestinian deaths in the fighting had also been closed.

Cousins Ahed Atef Bakr, aged 10, Zakaria Ahed Bakr, also 10, Mohamed Ramez Bakr, nine, and Ismail Mohamed Bakr, 11, were playing on the beach in Gaza City when they were hit in strikes witnessed by journalists staying at a beachfront hotel.

The incident is among those likely to be presented by the PA to the International Criminal Court as evidence of Israeli war crimes. But the Israeli military says its own internal probes will be sufficient to head off action by the Hague-based court.

Thursday night's statement said the military was also closing the files on the July 21 air raid on a residential tower block in central Gaza City, in which it said 15 people were killed, and a July 29 strike on the southern town of Khan Yunis which took the lives of several members of the same family.