Israel Calls for Changes to U.N. Jenin Camp Probe
Tue Apr 23, 9:51 PM ET
By Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel snubbed world efforts to get to the bottom of Palestinian allegations of an Israeli massacre at the Jenin refugee camp, saying it wanted changes to a U.N. fact-finding mission before it would allow it to visit.
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Israel officially notified the United Nations (news - web sites) overnight it had changed its mind about the U.N. mission and would not admit the team to Jenin unless it included military and counter-terrorism experts.
In response, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said the team might be expanded "as deemed necessary" but he expected the mission to be in the Middle East by Saturday.
Amid an international outcry at the scale of destruction in the Jenin camp, Palestinians have said hundreds of civilians may have been killed there, including many whose homes were shelled or bulldozed.
Israel, which can stop the U.N. team from entering Jenin if it withdraws its consent, has said it killed only a few dozen gunmen. Israel noted that 23 of its own soldiers died in street fighting in the camp during the three-week West Bank offensive that it launched on March 29 after scores of Israelis died in Palestinian suicide bombings.
To the surprise of American as well as U.N. officials, Israel's U.N. ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, asked for a delay in the mission Israel had agreed to on Friday. He said Israeli military and counter-terrorism experts would come to New York on Thursday to discuss its activities.
"We believe the mandate of the fact-finding team should also cover, not only military operation of Israel, but the terrorist network which has flourished in the Jenin refugee camp and which, in fact, generated the Israeli military operation," Lancry said after meeting Annan.
The group had expected to leave for the region at the end of the week, although Lancry said it might slip into next week, after the experts arrived.
BETHLEHEM TALKS FAIL
In Bethlehem, Israel and the Palestinians failed in initial talks on Tuesday to end a standoff at the Church of the Nativity, while Palestinian gunmen in Hebron carried out a street execution to the approval of a watching crowd.
But the negotiators agreed to meet again on Wednesday to try to find a peaceful solution to the stalemate between Israeli troops and dozens of Palestinian gunmen who ran into the church after Israel's West Bank campaign began on March 29.
Tanks still ringed President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s headquarters in Ramallah, where the army's detonation of what it said were unexploded grenades near his office caused alarm among Palestinians.
But Israeli efforts to isolate him seemed to be eroding, with planned visits this week by European Union (news - web sites) foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey.
Israel's demands on the U.N. Jenin probe was likely to touch off a flurry of diplomacy to put the mission back on track.
Mohammed Rashid, an aide to Arafat, said the Palestinians were not surprised by Israel's decision not to cooperate with a fact-finding mission.
"It shows that Israel has something to hide concerning the atrocities and war crimes committed at the camp," he said.
A spokesman for Sharon had earlier welcomed a fact-finding mission, saying Israel had nothing to hide over Jenin.
Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, was to lead the team, which included Cornelio Sommaruga, former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Sadako Ogata, the former U.N. high commissioner for refugees.
Ahtisaari said on Tuesday that a U.S. military adviser, retired Major-General William Nash, would be a full member of the team.
At the United Nations in New York, Security Council President Sergei Lavrov, Russia's ambassador, said council members, called into a special session on a related Middle East issue, expected "fast implementation" of its Friday resolution approving the mission.
He said he conveyed this message to Lancry, adding that the council expected "full cooperation" from Israel.
STREET JUSTICE
In the Palestinian security vacuum left by Israel's military campaign, Palestinian gunmen carried out a gory execution at the scene of an overnight Israeli strike that killed two militants in a car in Hebron.
About 20 gunmen had dragged three suspected collaborators with Israel out of a local prison, meeting no resistance from the handful of police on duty there.
They took them to the wreck of the car, hit by missiles from an Israeli helicopter gunship, and shot them there as a crowd screamed "Revenge, revenge."
The gunmen dragged the bloodied corpses through the street as men, women and children spat at the bodies, which were later strung up on electricity poles.
The Hebron execution followed similar shootings of three men in Ramallah on Monday, one of whom died of his wounds.
In the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) late on Tuesday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians who tried to infiltrate the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, the army said.
EU foreign policy chief Solana, denied access to Arafat when he and Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique went to the Middle East earlier in the month, planned to see Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters on Wednesday, EU president Spain said.
Pique told a news conference in Spain that Solana, accompanied by the EU's Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos, would also hold talks with Sharon.
At least 1,302 Palestinians and 454 Israelis have been killed during an 18-month-old Palestinian uprising.
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