JENIN, West Bank -- The
highest ranking U.N. official in the Middle East harshly condemned the
Israeli government Thursday, accusing it of failing to mount rescue
efforts here that might have saved Palestinian lives.
Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations' special envoy to the region,
said the Israelis should have immediately sent search-and-rescue teams
after their invasion of this West Bank town, which saw the fiercest
Israeli-Palestinian fighting in decades.
As Larsen spoke to reporters in the ruins of Jenin's former refugee
camp, he watched a man burrow through rubble with his hands to pull
out the remains of his elderly father.
"What we are seeing here is horrifying, horrifying scenes of human
suffering," said the Norwegian diplomat. "After the military offensive
in Jenin, the government of Israel has lost all moral ground in this
conflict."
Israeli military officials angrily denied the accusations, saying
search-and-rescue teams had been sent in whenever the army received
reports of trapped victims. They said one body was found.
"These are lies. I am sorry that Mr. Larsen has let himself be misled
by this kind of propaganda," army spokesman Capt. Kfir Luzzatto said.
Thursday was the first time since the Israeli operation in Jenin began
16 days ago that U.N. officials were allowed in to assess the damage
to the camp, which was established in 1953.
They encountered a scene of frantic despair. Hundreds of Palestinian
men, women and children, rushing to take advantage of a brief lifting
of the military curfew, streamed into the camp to gather meager
possessions, collect their dead and search for the living.
The center of the camp that once was home to 13,000 refugees has been
destroyed. Homes and shops that lined the main square have been
replaced by looming piles of rubble, the result of Israeli bulldozers,
tanks and shelling.
But earthmoving equipment remained in short supply. So far, a single
bulldozer owned by the Palestinian city government has served to sift
through the debris.
As a result, Palestinians on Thursday dug with their hands or scraped
at the earth with small plastic buckets. At least two bodies were
found. Both were unrecognizable.
Samih abu Siba and his children dug into their former basement, hoping
to find the remains of his father, Mohammed Masoud abu Siba, who they
said was about 65.
The elder Abu Siba was killed early in the fighting when he walked
onto the family's glass-walled veranda and was shot by Israeli
snipers, his son said. They tried to get help, but Abu Siba bled to
death in the family home.
They wrapped the body in a rug, but two hours later, Israeli
bulldozers began knocking down the house, the son said. They fled,
leaving Abu Siba's body behind.
When they returned Wednesday and again Thursday, family members found
the rug and tried to recover the remains.
"We were able to get half of my father," said Samih abu Siba, 43. "The
other half is still in there."
A few yards north of Abu Siba's former residence, another body lay
just inside the wall of a dangerously tottering house. Camp residents
gathered around, but nobody could identify the corpse, a tangle of
flesh and bone wrapped in a blanket.
The number of dead and the circumstances of their deaths have become
the central controversy in the battle of Jenin. The Israeli army lost
23 soldiers, including 13 in one explosion.
Palestinians say that between 300 and 500 died during about a week of
intense fighting. So far, however, the number of Palestinian bodies
pulled from the rubble is 37.
Human rights officials, who sneaked into the camp in recent days, said
it is still too early to tell what happened. But they urged the
Israeli government to open the area up to complete inspection.
"There's a need to establish the facts with authority," said Peter
Bouckaert, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. "It would be
helpful if the United States took a stronger stand to demand access to
these places."
Dr. Mohammed abu Gali, director of the town's general hospital, has an
office with a view of a hastily created graveyard at a construction
site behind the hospital. Medical workers have been burying bodies
there because the hospital has a spotty power supply and no reliable
way to cool its morgue.
Abu Gali said he believes that the Israeli government is hiding some
of the dead in refrigerated trucks. He said Israeli military officials
had recently given him five bodies recovered from the camp after
storing them in this fashion.
Israeli military officials could not be reached for comment late
Thursday.
Abu Gali also said 16 people were taken out of a home in the camp
Tuesday after having been trapped for several days. They could not be
located, and at least one former resident said the men were
Palestinian fighters who had since fled.
"The death statistics will not be known for two or three months," Abu
Gali said. "All the camp is rubble."
The search for the dead was only part of Thursday's drama. Other
refugees worked simply to regain what they lost when they fled.
Fuad Abahreh, 12, scratched at a pile of gray rubble that dwarfed his
small frame. He was covered in filth. His hands were gray with dust.
His face was sweaty and smudged.
He carried the family possessions he had managed to recover in a small
plastic bucket. His grandmother's identity card. An old picture. Some
legal documents.
"I lived here," he said, pointing to the pile of stone and twisted
metal.
A few yards away, former neighbors were pulling clothes from their
closet. They pointed to some blankets waving in the shell of a
building that belonged to them across the street. The home had
apparently been split in half during the assault.
Rasmieh Maslimani, 70, the home's occupant, has lived through two
previous Israeli-Arab wars. But this attack was different, she said.
"There was never destruction like this destruction," she said. "I have
never witnessed destruction like this, not with the Jews, not with the
Arabs."
As the reimposed curfew neared at 2 p.m., Jenin suddenly became a
ghost town. Streets crammed with people in the morning became empty.
Bustling shops shut down. Locals disappeared.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli army officials said that, in accordance with
promises made to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during his recent
visit, they were pulling out of the refugee camp and would leave the
town Thursday night. Early today, Israel Radio reported that the
withdrawal was complete. Tanks had taken up positions on the town's
outskirts.
Israel also continued its hunt for terrorists. Israeli radio and
television reported that the army had captured Hassam Atef Ali Badran,
a top Hamas militant allegedly involved in a March 27 suicide bombing
of a Jewish Passover celebration that killed 28 people, prompting the
West Bank invasion. Thursday's operation, near the town of Nablus,
left three people dead.
In the Gaza Strip today, Israeli forces said they returned fire
against Palestinians who shot at them during a short, routine action
inside Palestinian-controlled territory near Egypt. Palestinian
doctors said two people were killed.
Israeli tanks also moved into the West Bank town of Kalkilya today,
then left a few hours later, Palestinian witnesses said. The military
did not comment immediately.