Reporters do not back down from Jenin massacre claim

Saturday April 20, 2002 00:57

by Another press monitor

Jenin 'horror beyond belief', says UN envoy Extract from Irish Times 19 April 2002 (offered to counteract the unreferenced nonsense being posted to the site)

Jenin 'horror beyond belief', says UN envoy
From David Horovitz, in Jerusalem, and Deaglán de Bréadún, in New York

Accusing Israel of preventing "humanitarian aid work that could have saved lives," the UN special envoy, Mr Terje Roed-Larsen, said yesterday that conditions in the Jenin refugee camp were "horrifying beyond belief", with 2,000 people left homeless, half of them children.

The camp was the scene of the heaviest fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the three-week-old Israeli military offensive in the West Bank, and the Palestinians have accused of Israel of perpetrating a massacre there, alleging a death toll of 500. The director of Jenin's hospital, Dr Muhammed Abu Ghali, said yesterday that he could confirm 36 dead.

Col Miri Eisen, an Israeli army intelligence officer, firmly denied the massacre allegations, insisting that the death toll was in the dozens, and said that most of those killed were Palestinian gunmen. She said 10 suicide bombers who had already recorded "farewell videos" had been killed or captured in the camp, from which a series of bombers have been dispatched in recent months.

Mr Larsen said he could not confirm either account, but that there were "lots" of corpses. He said he would be reporting back to the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, on what he termed "a sad and disgraceful chapter in the history of Israel". Meanwhile, Mr Annan has made a dramatic intervention in the conflict with a proposal to the UN Security Council for a multinational military force to halt the violence and keep the two sides apart.

The Israeli army was withdrawing from Jenin to the city's outskirts yesterday, but remains deployed deep in Ramallah and Bethlehem, where it says it will remain until "wanted men" holed up there surrender. For 18 days, troops have encircled Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where more than 100 Palestinian gunmen are trapped along with several dozen clergymen.

President Bush indicated sympathy with Israel's refusal to withdraw from Ramallah, noting that five men alleged to have killed the Israeli tourism minister were in the basement of the building in which the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, is confined, and that "they should be brought to justice."

While Mr Bush praised Israel for honouring "a timetable" for the phased pullback of its troops, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders are indicating growing anger with the US position, which is why President Mubarak of Egypt declined to meet the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, this week.

Meanwhile, Mr Annan, has made a dramatic intervention in the Middle East conflict with a proposal to the UN Security Council for a multinational military force to halt the violence and keep the two sides apart.

Mr Annan said last night his proposed force would be a "coalition of the willing" rather than an official UN mission. The ambassadors of the 15 member-states on the Security Council responded cautiously, pending consultation with their respective governments.

Mr Annan told The Irish Times the force would "help create a secure environment as well as space for diplomatic and political negotiations to continue".

The aim of his plan was to put "the option for peace" back on the table. On the key question of whether it would deter suicide bombings, he said: "I think the presence of the force would help." The logic of war should be replaced with the logic of peace and, if there was a gradual move in that direction, "We will see less suicide bombing and less violence."

Ireland's UN envoy, Mr Richard Ryan, said the proposal would be examined very carefully in the various capitals. "We will no doubt return to it very quickly."