Ceasefire in everyone's interests - Israel's Peres

ALMATY, June 16 (Reuters) Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres gave a cautious welcome to Hamas's proposed ceasefire and said today he did not see a need for the United Nations to investigate the beach killings in Gaza last week.

Hamas, which formed the Palestinian government in March after winning elections, said yesterday it was willing to ask Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state.

But it said Israel had to first stop military activity in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

''I think all parties are interested in lowering the flames because the flames are uncontrollable,'' Peres told reporters during a trip to Kazakhstan. ''From the point of view of Israel there won't be shooting ... We are not initiating it.'' Asked about an appeal by the Palestinians and their supporters to ask the United Nations to investigate the killing of seven Palestinians including several members of the same family on a beach in Gaza last week, Peres said there was little the United Nations could do.

''I'm not sure because the UN doesn't have any means to investigate. All the evidence is in our hands,'' he said.

Israel has denied responsibility for the blast which occurred on a day of heavy shelling of the Gaza Strip.

''Israel is very careful in order to maintain our trustworthiness to tell the truth. If it really was because of an Israeli shell, we wouldn't deny it. We would say we are sorry,'' Peres said.

''But the basic fact is that the last shell was fired at 4:15 if I'm not wrong and the family was unfortunately killed close to 5 o'clock so there must have been something hidden in the ground that exploded.'' The Palestinian UN observer, Riyad Mansour, said yesterday representatives from the Non-Aligned Movement, the UN Palestinian rights committee, the Arab League and the Islamic conference had approached Secretary-General Kofi Annan to back the request for an investigation.

The Hamas Islamists ended a 16-month truce with Israel a week ago in the wake of the Gaza beach killings.

REUTERS SHR RS1339