Flashpoints Jan 7 2002: US/Israeli war on Iraq; talk w author of Searching Jenin

There is not even a SINGLE person missing from jenin. All 54 dead were found, no other person missing. most dead are Islamic Jihad worriers.

Adn the moon is made of blue cheese.

E. Overall effects of the incursions on the Palestinian population

37. According to a report prepared by United Nations agencies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the humanitarian and development effects of the two waves of incursions were as follows:

(a) A total of 497 Palestinians were killed in the course of the IDF reoccupation of Palestinian area A from 1 March to 7 May 2002 and in the immediate aftermath;

(b) Palestinian health authorities and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported approximately 1,447 wounded with some 538 live-ammunition injuries (for the same period);

(c) Round-the-clock curfews were imposed in cities, refugee camps, towns and villages affecting an estimated 1 million persons; over 600,000 of them remained under a one-week curfew, while 220,000 urban residents lived under curfew regimes for a longer duration and without vital supplies and access to first aid;

(d) Severe internal and external closures continue to paralyse normal economic activity, and movement of persons and goods throughout the West Bank; in the Gaza Strip, the unprecedented 38-day-long internal closures divided the Strip into three intermittently isolated areas;

(e) Protracted curfews, compounded by severe restrictions on commercial circulation of supplies, rendered the food security situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory precarious: over 630,000 persons or roughly 20 per cent of the resident population were considered food security vulnerable;

(f) Food deficit was increasingly observed in various regions of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Gaza food market being particularly distorted. Restrictions on food imports resulted in a mild increase in the overall food price level in the West Bank and in a considerable rise (up to 25-30%) of prices for staple commodities in the Gaza Strip;

(g) Over 2,800 refugee housing units were damaged and 878 homes were demolished or destroyed during the reporting period, leaving more than 17,000 people homeless or in need of shelter rehabilitation;

(h) Non-refugee housing in Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin town and Tulkarm and a number of surrounding villages sustained damage ranging from minor to structural;

(i) Students in eight West Bank districts were prevented from attending school. It is estimated that, during the reporting period, some 11,000 classes were missed and 55,000 teaching sessions were lost;

(j) Fifty Palestinian schools were damaged by Israeli military action, of which 11 were totally destroyed, 9 were vandalized, 15 used as military outposts and another 15 as mass arrest and detention centres.

38. Even before the recent military operation, economic and social conditions in the West Bank and Gaza were in a state of crisis. According to an assessment by the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator, the 18 months of confrontations and restrictions on movement prior to March and April had witnessed a more than 20 per cent reduction in domestic production levels, unprecedented levels of unemployment, a 30 per cent decline in per capita income and a more than doubling of the poverty rate, to some 45 per cent of the Palestinian population.

39. While it is difficult to ascertain with precision the magnitude of the socio-economic effects of the incursions, available preliminary information indicates a sharp intensification of the hardships faced by the population. That information suggests that the principal economic result has been a near-complete cessation of all productive activity in the main West Bank centres of manufacturing, construction, commerce and private and public services. Activities in those centres account for at least 75 per cent of the value of goods and services produced in the West Bank. The production stoppage has imposed immediate income losses on employees and owners of businesses, as well as losses in tax revenues for the Palestinian Authority. In addition, suppliers and buyers in the urban areas directly affected have close economic links to rural areas; the isolation of the former has significant negative effects on the latter. This is also true of the relationship between businesses in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

40. In addition to the inability of households to access medical, educational or other services during Operation Defensive Shield, people have been separated from their means of income. This has resulted in lost opportunities to earn income, further compressing household income and savings and exacerbating the severe decline in living levels of the last 18 months. As a result, the West Bank will witness even higher levels of poverty in the short- to medium-term.

41. According to the World Bank, reconstruction costs for physical and institutional damage to Palestinian Authority civilian infrastructure resulting from the incursions in the West Bank in March and April 2002 would total US$ 361 million.

42. While the United Nations does not have a mandate to monitor and report on conditions in Israel, as it does in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is apparent that the violence, specifically terrorist attacks, has caused enormous suffering for the Israeli people and the country's economy.


F. Recent events in Jenin

Introduction

43. In the early hours of 3 April 2002, as part of Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli Defence Forces entered the city of Jenin and the refugee camp adjacent to it, declared them a closed military area, prevented all access, and imposed a round-the-clock curfew. By the time of the IDF withdrawal and the lifting of the curfew on 18 April, at least 52 Palestinians, of whom up to half may have been civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were dead. Many more were injured. Approximately 150 buildings had been destroyed and many others were rendered structurally unsound. Four hundred and fifty families were rendered homeless. The cost of the destruction of property is estimated at approximately $27 million.

Jenin refugee camp before 3 April 2002

44. On the eve of Israel's military incursion in April, the Jenin refugee camp, established in 1953, was home to roughly 14,000 Palestinians, of whom approximately 47 per cent were either under 15 or over 65 years of age. It was the second largest refugee camp in the West Bank in population and was densely populated, occupying a surface area of approximately 373 dunums (one square kilometre). The Jenin refugee camp came under full Palestinian civil and security control in 1995. It is in close proximity to Israeli settlements and is near the "green line".

45. According to both Palestinian and Israeli observers, the Jenin camp had, by April 2002, some 200 armed men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Tanzim, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas who operated from the camp. The Government of Israel has charged that, from October 2000 to April 2002, 28 suicide attacks were planned and launched from the Jenin camp.

46. The Government of Israel has published information regarding infrastructure within the Jenin camp for the carrying out of attacks. The Israeli Defence Forces point to their discovery in the camp of arms caches and explosive laboratories and the numbers of Palestinian militants killed or arrested there during Operation Defensive Shield. They cite posters glorifying suicide bombers and documents describing Jenin as a "martyr's capital" reportedly found by Israeli soldiers in the camp during the incursion.

47. The Government of Israel and IDF have acknowledged that their soldiers were unprepared for the level of resistance they encountered in Jenin camp, noting that it was "probably the most bitter and harsh" that they had faced. The IDF soldiers who took part in the operation were, for the most part, reservists who had been mobilized only on or after 17 March. Many were called up only after the Passover bombing in Netanya (27 March).

Israeli Defence Force incursion into Jenin city and refugee camp, 3-18 April 2002

48. Although available first-hand accounts are partial, difficult to authenticate and often anonymous, it is possible, through Government of Israel, Palestinian Authority, United Nations and other international sources, to create a rough chronology of events within the Jenin camp from 3 to 18 April 2002. The fighting lasted approximately 10 days and was characterized by two distinct phases: the first phase began on 3 April and ended on 9 April, while the second phase lasted during 10 and 11 April. Most of the deaths on both sides occurred in the first phase but it would appear that much of the physical damage was done in the second.

49. There are allegations by the Palestinian Authority and human rights organizations that in the conduct of their operations in the refugee camp the Israeli Defence Forces engaged in unlawful killings, the use of human shields, disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrests and torture and denial of medical treatment and access. IDF soldiers who participated in the Jenin incursion point to breaches of international humanitarian law on the part of Palestinian combatants within the camp, including basing themselves in a densely populated civilian area and the use of children to transport and possibly lay booby traps.

50. In the account of the Government of Israel of the operation, IDF first surrounded and established control of access into and out of the city of Jenin, allowing its inhabitants to depart voluntarily. Approximately 11,000 did so. According to Israeli sources, in their incursion into the camp IDF relied primarily on infantry rather than airpower and artillery in an effort to minimize civilian casualties, but other accounts of the battle suggest that as many as 60 tanks may have been used even in the first days. Interviews with witnesses conducted by human rights organizations suggest that tanks, helicopters and ground troops using small arms predominated in the first two days, after which armoured bulldozers were used to demolish houses and other structures so as to widen alleys in the camp.

51. Using loudspeakers, IDF urged civilians in Arabic to evacuate the camp. Some reports, including of interviews with IDF soldiers, suggest that those warnings were not adequate and were ignored by many residents. Many of the inhabitants of the Jenin camp fled the camp before or at the beginning of the IDF incursion. Others left after 9 April. Estimates vary on how many civilians remained in the camp throughout but there may have been as many as 4,000.

52. As described by the Government of Israel, "a heavy battle took place in Jenin, during which IDF soldiers were forced to fight among booby-trapped houses and bomb fields throughout the camp, which were prepared in advance as a booby-trapped battlefield". The Palestinian Authority acknowledges that "a number of Palestinian fighters resisted the Israeli military assault and were armed only with rifles and … crude explosives". An IDF spokesman offered a slightly different portrayal of the resistance, stating that the soldiers had faced "more than a thousand explosive charges, live explosive charges and some more sophisticated ones, … hundreds of hand grenades … [and] hundreds of gunmen". Human rights reports support the assertions that some buildings had been booby-trapped by the Palestinian combatants.

53. That the Israeli Defence Forces encountered heavy Palestinian resistance is not in question. Nor is the fact that Palestinian militants in the camp, as elsewhere, adopted methods which constitute breaches of international law that have been and continue to be condemned by the United Nations. Clarity and certainty remain elusive, however, on the policy and facts of the IDF response to that resistance. The Government of Israel maintains that IDF "clearly took all possible measures not to hurt civilian life" but were confronted with "armed terrorists who purposely concealed themselves among the civilian population". However, some human rights groups and Palestinian eyewitnesses assert that IDF soldiers did not take all possible measures to avoid hurting civilians, and even used some as human shields.

54. As IDF penetrated the camp, the Palestinian militants reportedly moved further into its centre. The heaviest fighting reportedly occurred between 5 and 9 April, resulting in the largest death tolls on both sides. There are reports that during this period IDF increased missile strikes from helicopters and the use of bulldozers - including their use to demolish homes and allegedly bury beneath them those who refused to surrender - and engaged in "indiscriminate" firing. IDF lost 14 soldiers, 13 in a single engagement on 9 April. IDF incurred no further fatalities in Jenin after 9 April.

55. Press reports from the days in question and subsequent interviews by representatives of non-governmental organizations with camp residents suggest that an average of five Palestinians per day died in the first three days of the incursion and that there was a sharp increase in deaths on 6 April.

56. Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. IDF also place the death toll at approximately 52. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged.

57. It is impossible to determine with precision how many civilians were among the Palestinian dead. The Government of Israel estimated during the incursion that there were "only dozens killed in Jenin … and the vast majority of them bore arms and fired upon [IDF] forces". Israeli officials informed United Nations personnel that they believed that, of the 52 dead, 38 were armed men and 14 were civilians. The Palestinian Authority has acknowledged that combatants were among the dead, and has named some of them, but has placed no precise estimates on the breakdown. Human rights organizations put the civilian toll closer to 20 - Human Rights Watch documented 22 civilians among the 52 dead, while Physicians for Human Rights noted that "children under the age of 15 years, women and men over the age of 50 years accounted for nearly 38 per cent of all reported fatalities".

58. The Israeli Defence Forces stated at the time that their methods might not change, "because the basic assumption is that we are operating in a civilian neighbourhood". Other accounts of the battle suggest that the nature of the military operation in Jenin refugee camp did alter after 9 April 2002. On that day, in what both the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel describe as a "well-planned ambush" 13 IDF soldiers were killed and a number of others wounded. A fourteenth soldier died elsewhere in the camp that day, bringing the IDF death toll during the operation in Jenin to 23.

59. Following the ambush, IDF appeared to have shifted tactics from house-to-house searches and destruction of the homes of known militants to wider bombardment with tanks and missiles. IDF also used armoured bulldozers, supported by tanks, to demolish portions of the camp. The Government of Israel maintains that "IDF forces only destroyed structures after calling a number of times for inhabitants to leave buildings, and from which the shooting did not cease". Witness testimonies and human rights investigations allege that the destruction was both disproportionate and indiscriminate, some houses coming under attack from the bulldozers before their inhabitants had the opportunity to evacuate. The Palestinian Authority maintains that IDF "had complete and detailed knowledge of what was happening in the camp through the use of drones and cameras attached to balloons … [and] none of the atrocities committed were unintentional".

60. Human rights and humanitarian organizations have questioned whether this change in tactics was proportionate to the military objective and in accordance with humanitarian and human rights law. The Palestinian Authority account of the battle alleges the use of "helicopter gunships to fire TOW missiles against such a densely populated area … anti-aircraft guns, able to fire 3,000 rounds a minute … scores of tanks and armoured vehicles equipped with machine guns … [and] bulldozers to raze homes and to burrow wide lanes". Other sources point to an extensive use of armoured bulldozers and helicopter gunships on 9 and 10 April, possibly even after the fighting had begun to subside. During this stage, much of the physical damage was done, particularly in the central Hawashin district of the camp, which was effectively levelled. Many civilian dwellings were completely destroyed and many more were severely damaged. Several UNRWA facilities in the camp, including its health centre and sanitation office, were badly damaged.

61. Within two days after 9 April, IDF brought the camp under control and defeated the remaining armed elements. On 11 April, the last Palestinian militants in Jenin camp surrendered to IDF, having requested mediation by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that operates in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to ensure that no harm would come to them. According to Palestinian Authority sources, those surrendering included wanted Islamic Jihad and Fatah leaders; others were three injured people and a 13-year-old boy.

Available at http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/

The UN (not a zionist organization) confirm what I said.
Agaian Dennis Bernstein is lying.

Explain what is wrong in being a zionist - why do you think a zionist does not tell the truth ?

Do you know what zionism is ? (not what the flase propeganda sais it is )

Abu

"All 54 dead were found, no other person missing. most dead are Islamic Jihad worriers."

Abu, wake up, okay? The guy in the crushed wheelchair who was murdered by IDF in Jenin - among many other accounts of civilians deaths - was not a Jihad warrior.

The report above details that civilians WERE killed.

Go find another site and leave Dennis alone.

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