Jenin 'massacre' - the verdict

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday May 02, 2002 22:38 by Dan Brett dan at danielbrett dot co dot uk

Doubt cast on Palestinian Authority figures

An overview of the arguments surrounding the Jenin 'massacre'. Preliminary conclusions by human rights groups suggest that the IDF's body count is correct - but they still maintain that the military is guilty of war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

In an interview with Washington Post, Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch stated that: "we have not found any evidence to suggest that hundreds of people were 'massacred' by Israeli forces in Jenin. We have found at least 51 people were killed in the offensive including 21 civilians -- many of whom were children, women and old men." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/02/world/world_bouckaert0426.ht
m)

These estimates were confirmed by British military expert David Holley, a Major in the British Army, although he speculated that the final death toll could be as high as 80. He said: "I think massacre is a word that is too often used in these sorts of situations and it doesn't really help. What we have got here is possibly 54 bodies found so far, with possibly 20 or 30 unaccounted for but we can't really verify these figures until the whole site is cleared. Talking to people and talking to witnesses, even very credible witnesses, it just appears there was no wholesale killing. Clearly the... civilians who died in the battle were caught in crossfire and there have been one or two civilians who were shot and executed." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1957000/1957862.stm)

Nevertheless, both agree that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were responsible for denying medical services and basic amenities and that this constitutes a war crime. Said Bouckaert: "Even though some of the worst allegations about Jenin have not been proven to have occurred we do think that the abuses which did take place are extremely serious and warrant the attention of the international community."

He added that four types of abuse occurred in Jenin

1. Significant number of civilians who were killed in circumstances directly related to the forceful methods used by Israel during its offensive.

2. The massive destruction of civilian homes and sometimes indiscriminate use of helicopter fire used in the camp.

3. The use of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army to carry out some of its most dangerous tasks in the camp.

4. The blanket denial of medical and humanitarian access to the camp during and after the military operation.

Holley said he spoke to 'credible witnesses' who confirmed these abuses: "The hard fact is that water and electricity were cut off to the town. That cannot be denied and that is a crime. Another fact is that for nine days no wounded were taken to the hospital, the Israelis blocked it. That is a fact, that is a war crime. You cannot stop medical services from administering to the wounded. These are facts we have at the moment that cannot be disputed and need to be investigated."

The extent of physical damage was far higher than announced by Israel. Holley said: "There is an extensive area - about 200 metres (600ft) by about 100 metres (300ft) - that has been completely flattened. It is just like a building site or the aftermath of an earthquake. No houses, just rubble." Bouckaert estimated the number of people from the refugee camp left homeless by the IDF attack was over 4,000 out of a population of 14,000.

However, Bouckaert and Holley disagreed on how the international community was handling the crisis. Human Rights Watch has consistently called for a UN investigative team in Jenin to examine and document war cimes. It's call is backed by Amnesty International, which stated on 2 May that it "strongly criticised what it described as unacceptable Israeli demands that led to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan informing the Security Council of his intent to disband the fact-finding team which he established to investigate what occurred at Jenin
refugee camp." (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE150732002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTR
IES\ISRAEL/OCCUPIED+TERRITORIES)

Yet Holley claimed Israel "has a point" in rejecting a UN inquiry: "I think it is unfair for a lawyer to go to Jenin to then build up a military picture of what happened. You do need a soldier's perspective to say, well, this was a close quarter battle in an urban environment, unfortunately soldiers will make mistakes and will throw a hand grenade through the wrong window, will shoot at a twitching curtain, because that is the way war is." However, he still called for an inquiry, possibly made up of military experts - like him!

Both human rights organised added their condemnation of suicide bombings and the summary executions of so-called 'collaborators' by armed Palestinian groups. In an earlier statement, Amnesty condemned the attack on the hotel in Netanya, which killed 19 civilians and injured over 100 during Passover celebrations. "Deliberately targeting civilians is a grave breach of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law," the organisation said. "This is an unacceptable tragedy and we call on armed Palestinian groups to immediately cease killing civilians."

Hanny Megally, Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said: "It doesn´t matter whether you call it resistance, self-defense, or a war against terror. No political or security objective can justify targeting and punishing the civilian population of an adversary."

It is time to talk justice and peace, not retribution and war. Neither side will be served by inflicting violence on civilians of the other. Now everyone must be brought before the law as equals, regardless of their standing with the US or their military might.