Jerusalem: Israeli Defence establishment has launched an investigation into claims that soldiers abused the bodies of dead Palestinians and took photographs with them.

Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon ordered Military Police today (Nov 19, 2004) to launch an investigation after Labour party lawmaker Ophir Pines-Paz submitted to the Knesset an urgent motion concerning the abuse.

"The soldiers' actions testify to a moral imperviousness and there must be action taken to prevent this from recurring," Pines Paz is quoted to have said.

The matter was brought to light by Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot.

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Ya'alon said that he condemns such behaviour and that the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) ethical strength is no less important than its military strength.

The daily's investigation of the phenomenon included numerous accounts of IDF soldiers who photographed the bodies of Palestinians or who were themselves photographed with the bodies.

In an account provided by a soldier serving in the Nahal Haharedi battalion, he said that the soldiers used the body of a suicide bomber, who blew himself up at the unit's Hamra checkpoint in the Jordan Valley, positioned his head on a concrete barrier and placed a cigarette in his mouth before taking photographs.