A Defense Ministry board of inquiry into the collapse of the seven-story building housing the Israeli local headquarters in Tyre has, ruled out sabotage as the cause of the disaster in which 89 people were killed, 75 Israelis and 14 Arabs. In addition, 28 Israelis and 28 Arabs were injured. The disaster occurred November II.
The inquiry panel, headed by Maj. Gen. Meir Zorea, the Defense Ministry’s comptroller, and consisting of experts including architects and construction engineers and representatives of the various military services that were housed in the building, presented its findings to Defense Minister Ariel Sharon last Friday. He presented the findings to the Cabinet today.
The commission found no traces of a high explosive blast, and all evidence pointed to an explosion caused by a leak from cooking gas cylinders in one of the first floor rooms. The experts expressed amazement at the low quality of the building materials, the lack of adequate building codes, and the substandard iron and concrete in the building’s construction.
The building had originally been four storys high but another three storys had been added later, without proper reinforcement, the commission reported. The building had at one time housed the PLO and had been damaged by Israeli shellings from the sea during the war in Lebanon. The bombardment had apparently weakened the building even further.
The panel recommended that a review be instituted of all storage gas cylinders in buildings housing Israeli soldiers, and that adequate investigations be carried out to determine structural strengths and weakness of Israeli-occupied buildings.
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