The biggest battle over Jenin may not be the fierce fighting
on the ground that has stopped, but what will be recorded by
world opinion as having happened there. UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan has appointed a three-member fact-finding team,
led by former Finnish prime minister Martti Ahtisaari, to
report on what happened during Israel's military assault on
the Jenin refugee camp.
At issue is what took place there, site of the fiercest
fighting after Israel began its military operation in the
West Bank late last month in an attempt to round up
terrorists and collect illegal arms in Palestinian-
controlled cities.
According to Palestinian sources, Israel killed 500 innocent
Palestinian civilians during the fighting in Jenin.
Israel, in turn, says it killed several dozen and most of
them were Palestinian gunmen, and lost 23 of its own soldiers
in the fighting. So far no evidence of mass murder has been
uncovered. Most of the several dozen bodies found were of
fighters.
It is clear that Israel did not target civilians but rather
the terrorists who deliberately hid among them.
Israeli officials say that Palestinian gunmen used the
refugee camp as a base for terrorist operations against
Israel and were therefore responsible for bringing the fight
with the IDF into a civilian area. This is based on accepted
international law. About one fourth of all the suicide
bombers left from that camp.
On Sunday, CNN reported that 43 Palestinians had so far been
found dead amid the rubble of Jenin. Most of them were men
aged 20-45, presumably fighters. International rescue teams
sifted through rubble in the camp in an effort to find and
defuse booby traps planted by Palestinian gunmen.
Last Friday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to
send a fact-finding team to Jenin to determine what happened
there. The 15-0 vote came hours after Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel
would welcome such a team.
The other two members are Cornelio Sommaruga, former
president of the International Committee of the Red Cross,
and Sadako Ogata, the former UN high commissioner for
refugees who is Japan's special envoy on Afghan
reconstruction. Ahtisaari said he hopes the team will arrive
in the West Bank later this week.
Israeli diplomatic officials expressed concern the members of
the commission were appointed without prior consultation, as
Jerusalem had expected.
One said Israel expected the members to have a military
background, and not be "political." Nevertheless, the
officials said Israel plans to cooperate with the committee,
because "it has nothing to hide."
"We hope the committee will truly be a fact-finding body, and
not another UN committee that is biased towards the
Palestinians," the official said.
"Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in
Jenin," Foreign Minister Peres told Annan, according to
officials at Israel's Mission to the United Nations. "Our
hands are clean."
At the weekly Cabinet session, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
said that given the worldwide attention to the issue, Israel
had no alternative but to agree to the U.N. fact-finding
mission.
Minister Yitzhak Levy said the U.N. fact-finding mission
should also look into the "Pesach Massacre" in which 29
people were killed on March 27 in a suicide bombing at a
seder in Netanya. That attack prompted Israel to launch its
military operation in the West Bank two days later.
Israeli security forces said they prevented three suicide
bombers from carrying out attacks inside Israel over the
weekend.
Gideon Meir, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general in
charge of public affairs, said Israel plans to present the
fact-finders with evidence proving the Jenin refugee camp was
"an assembly line for terrorism."
One issue that Israel plans to raise is that the refugee camp
was under UN control, yet it was a hotbed of terrorism and
the Palestinian cult of death. The IDF found many posters
glorifying suicide bombers and other such material. The
presence of armed men in the camp is also against
international law.
During the fighting, Israel supplied truckloads of food to
the camp, and a generator and oxygen to the Jenin hospital.
Israel also offered blood, which was rejected. Israeli army
doctors and medics say they treated injured Palestinians.
Every stage of the Jenin operation was filmed and this
material, Israeli officials say, will help prove the Israeli
case.
