AN ISRAELI rights group yesterday claimed there was a "culture of impunity" in the Israeli security forces after the army decided not to order a disciplinary investigation into the killing of 21 Palestinian civilians in November 2006.

The dead men, women and children included at least 13 members of the Athamneh family, among them a one-year-old girl. Another 35 people were injured as a dozen 155-mm heavy artillery shells struck the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

This week the Israel Defence Force's adjutant-general said a rare computer malfunction had caused the shells to hit 500 metres from their target, a field that militants had used to fire missiles at Israel.

There was therefore no reason to charge any soldier with negligence, Brigadier-General Avihai Mandelblit decided. His announcement did not address the gunners' supposed failure to notice their shells going astray.

The Beit Hanoun bombardment followed an incident that year in which seven members of the picnicking Ghalya family were killed by an explosion on a north Gaza beach. In that incident, the military admitted having fired six shells at the time at an area 250 metres away from the explosion, one of which it could not account for. But it blamed the deaths on a new type of Hamas landmine.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem yesterday said the Beit Hanoun decision reflected a "culture of impunity" in the military.

"We have to ask ourselves whether the IDF's internal investigations meet the basic standards of international law, which is that they be independent, open to review and timely," said a spokeswoman, Sarit Michaeli.

�¡ Two French lawyers for an Israeli soldier held by Hamas will travel to Gaza this week to discuss his fate with the militant group, a member of the family's legal team said on Tuesday. Hamas denied any talks.

The lawyers told Paris media Hamas had forwarded a letter from Sergeant Gilad Shalit, who also has French nationality, to his family recently and he appeared to be in reasonable health.