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News :: Miscellaneous |
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UN Report: Israel uses WMD to Kill 497 Palestinians in 2 Months; Avoids the Word |
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by Ben Gillam
(No verified email address) |
01 Aug 2002
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NEW YORK: A UN report due out Thursday on Israel's military assault on Jenin's refugee camp last March said Israel endangered Palestinian civilians by using heavy weaponry in densely populated areas, while it claimed Palestinian activists used the West Bank camp as a base. |
It also criticizes Israel for delaying aid and medical help to Palestinians in the camp, in a copy media sources obtained ahead of its release.
The report by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan avoided the word "massacre" and dismissed that hundreds of Palestinians died in Jenin during Israel's so-called "Operation Defensive Shield".
497 Palestinians were killed between March 01 and May 07 in the course of the Israeli incursion into Palestinian cities and towns including Jenin, the report said, citing UN figures. Another 1,447 were wounded, including 538 live ammunition injuries, the report added, citing local health authorities.
While the Israeli authorities defended using heavy arms in the crammed, poverty-stricken refugee camp, allegedly to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian activist groups, the report said the fighting took place in heavily populated areas, with Israeli forces using tanks, helicopter gunships and armored bulldozers.
Meanwhile, the report acknowledged that throughout the campaign, civilian Palestinians "suffered severe hardships, compounded in some places by the extensive fighting that occurred during the operation."
Furthermore, it criticized Israeli measures, which delayed access to medical care and humanitarian aid, causing suffering to Palestinians.
"In many instances, humanitarian workers were not able to reach people in need to assess conditions and deliver necessary assistance because of the sealing of cities, refugee camps and villages." The report read, while stressing there were cases of Israeli forces "not respecting the neutrality of medical and humanitarian workers and attacking ambulances."
Throughout the Israeli reoccupation, Jenin residents suffered immensely under tight curfews and while water supplies, electricity and telephones were cut off, and one in five ran short on food, the report added.
Meanwhile, more than 8,500 Palestinians were arrested between Feb. 27 and May 20, and many of these were held for weeks afterward, the report said, citing local human rights groups.
The UN Secretary-General had initially named a fact-finding team to investigate atrocities in Jenin after Israel initially welcomed such a mission, adding it had nothing to hide. Annan was later forced to call off the mission after Israeli authorities refused to cooperate with it.
Israel would not allow the UN Fact-Finding Committee to "summon [Israeli occupation] soldiers and officers to give evidence, unless specifically authorized by Israel to do so," Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the time.
Faced with another likely Israeli refusal to cooperate, the 189-nation U.N. General Assembly, which the Arabs resorted to for help, asked Annan to prepare the report based on public information. Israel declined to provide any information or cooperate. Nevertheless, public material was submitted by the PA, UN agencies, five UN member states and private organizations including human rights, relief organizations and US Jewish organizations. |
