Original sentence: Israel contends it was assured by the United States that no US ships were in the area, and that its air and naval forces wrongly identified the Liberty at various stages as a Russian intelligence ship providing information to the Arabs or as the Egyptian vessel "El Quseir," which is a horse carrier one-fourth the size of the Liberty.Israel maintains that the incident was entirely due to error, a finding supported by a number of United States government reports and officially accepted by the United States
Edited sentence: Israel contends it was assured by the United States that no US ships were in the area, though the US has refuted this, and that its air and naval forces wrongly identified the Liberty at various stages as a ship which was non-Israeli and therefore an assumed enemy, according to Israel, though the ship was clearly-marked, the attack took place on a clear day, and it was previously identified by Israeli aircraft earlier in the day.Israel maintains that the incident was entirely due to error, and this was officially accepted by the United States.Israel's naval forces contend that they mistook the Liberty for the Egyptian vessel El Quseir, a horse carrier one-fourth the size of the Liberty (which was in fact docked and waiting to be scrapped at the time of the attack).Some claim that this finding was supported by a number of United States government investigations, but only one actual investigation has ever taken place, and it was recently labeled fraudulent by it's own senior counsel