A U.N. report on Israel's military attack on a Palestinian refugee camp does not back up Palestinian claims of a massacre, but it does criticize both sides for putting civilians in harm's way, Western diplomats said Wednesday.
"Of particular concern is the use, by combatants on both sides, of violence that placed civilians in harm's way," said the report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The report accuses Israel of delaying aid and medical help to Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp. "There were also cases of Israeli forces not respecting the neutrality of medical and humanitarian workers and attacking ambulances," the report said, adding that humanitarian workers in many cases were unable to reach people in need for days.
And it charges Palestinian groups with deliberately putting its fighters and equipment in civilian areas in violation of international law, according to the diplomats. The violence in Jenin came during an Israeli offensive launched on March 29 in response to a suicide bombing that killed 29 Israelis.
"The government of Israel has charged that from October 2000 to April 2002, 28 suicide attacks were planned and launched from the Jenin Camp," the report said. Thus, the heaviest fighting during the period was in the Jenin camp, where the Palestinians said Israeli attacks killed 500 people.
The long-awaited report, scheduled to be released on Thursday, said that between March 1 and the beginning of May, 497 Palestinians were killed during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, according to diplomats who got advance copies and spoke to AP. That figure was almost double the death toll of 262 reported by the Red Crescent Society in the Palestinian territories for the same period.
But it said that in Jenin, 52 Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by April 18, and that up to half may have been civilians. "A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in light of the evidence that has emerged," the report said.
Israel maintained that it fought fierce battles against Palestinian “terrorists” in which 52 Palestinians were killed — the vast majority gunmen — along with 23 Israeli soldiers. Human rights groups have said 22 civilians were killed in Jenin.
The U.N. findings mirrored those of Human Rights Watch, which said its experts had found nothing to back allegations of an Israeli army massacre. The report was based on information from U.N. officials, the Palestinians, five U.N. member states, private relief organizations and documents in the public domain, the diplomats said. Annan asked the Israeli government to help in preparing the report but U.N. officials said Israel did not make a submission or respond to the letter.
Israel and the Palestinians received copies of the report late Wednesday. The report stresses the difficulty of authenticating information, noting that first hand accounts are partial and often anonymous, the diplomats said.
In criticizing the Palestinians, the report noted that much of the fighting took place in heavily populated civilian areas partly because the Palestinians put their fighters in those areas in breach of international law, the diplomats said.
Additionally, it attacks Israeli tactics that put civilians at risk, saying Palestinian civilians suffered because Israel delayed access to medical care and humanitarian aid.
Using tanks, helicopter, gunships and bulldozers, the Israeli army attacked populated areas, causing severe hardships to civilians "compounded in some places by the extensive fighting that occurred during the operation," Annan said. Curfews and closures imposed by Israel also contributed to civilian suffering, diplomats quoted the report as saying.
Reactions
Israel said on Thursday the U.N. report cleared up "misconceptions" that there had been a massacre.
"We understand that the report is absolutely categorical, there was no massacre and statements by the Palestinian leadership talking about hundreds of civilians that were killed were nothing more than atrocity propaganda," said Daniel Taub, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official.
"We think that these findings are extremely important both to clear up misconceptions about what happened in Jenin and also to pave the way to the possibility of restarting dialogue in the future."
The Palestinian minister, Nabil Shaath said the report should have been prepared differently but called it an important step and said it identified what happened in Jenin as a crime against humanity.
"I know it doesn't satisfy everybody and it wasn't done in the way it should have been done. But still it identifies what happened in Jenin as a...crime against humanity," he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
