For sure, UNWRA has been a big enabler of the intifada. The ICRC has not been far behind, uttering not a peep when the Palestinians use Red Crescent ambulances as APCs, but complaining bitterly when the IDF stops or searches the ambulances. The ICRC has also refused offers of Israeli blood, insisting supplies be brought in from Jordan. An IDF soldier's account of Jenin:
Soldier recalls a tough, bloody battle
Ben Lynfield In Tel Aviv
FOR the Israeli reservists who fought there, Jenin refugee camp will probably be remembered as the site of the worst combat they have ever experienced.
"It was a tough and bloody battle by both sides," says Tidhar Ben-Hagai, 34, a sergeant-major in the reserves who was back at his job yesterday, working with youths from distressed backgrounds. "The Palestinians do not have many weapons, but in a crowded place, M-16s and home-made bombs are all it takes to make a tough fight."
Mr Ben-Hagai commanded one of the first armoured personnel carriers into the camp. He served as a scout through a week of fighting that has left the Arab world outraged and has prompted the UN Security Council to dispatch a fact-finding team.
Mr Ben-Hagai spoke to The Scotsman because he said he wanted people outside Israel to get the story from the point of view of average soldiers, not the Israeli army spokesmen or Palestinian officials.
Palestinian fighters shot from civilians’ houses, he says, placed booby traps in areas used by civilians, misused ambulances, fired from a mosque minaret and took over a UN clinic.
"Our army is certainly not a bunch of angels, but the cynicism of the Palestinian fighters was really incredible," he said.
The Palestinian Authority charges that civilians were massacred and puts the number of dead at hundreds. The Israeli government says the dozens killed were mainly fighters, while 23 Israeli soldiers died in the fighting.
However, some facts of the controversy are beyond dispute: Israeli forces barred ambulances and humanitarian aid and the built-up area in the centre of the camp - nearly the size of two football fields - was completely obliterated, with an unknown number of corpses buried under the rubble.
Mr Ben-Hagai says he has no doubt that some Palestinians bled to death because they were unable to get medical treatment. And he says the orders were for troops to use Palestinians to open doors of houses they wanted to search. That would be a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
During the first days of the fighting, Mr Ben-Hagai said, ambulances were allowed in by the army but they were barred after it was noticed that "no wounded people were being taken on to the ambulances.
"We think some of them were carrying fighters. The activity of the ambulances was very suspicious."
Israel’s is a citizens’ army and for 55 days of the past year, Mr Ben-Hagai and the seven soldiers he commands have put on their uniforms. Two are university students, one is a car mechanic, one a lawyer, one works for the state electricity company, one is a business executive and one is training to be a psychologist.
Three weeks ago, the group found themselves part of "Operation Defensive Shield", the West Bank offensive ordered to "destroy the terrorist infrastructure" after a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings.
Jenin refugee camp spawned at least ten attacks against Israeli targets in a year. The assignment was to locate explosives, explosive laboratories and to search for weapons, Mr Ben-Hagai says. No-one thought the battle would end up wreaking the massive destruction that it did, he says, but the Palestinian resistance was much more intensive than anticipated.
Most of the damage, he says, was caused by the bulldozers brought in on the fifth day of the fighting.
"We were supposed to get into the houses without the heavy weapons. We knew we were going into a civilian place and we were told to be careful."
As soldiers began to be picked off by Palestinian fighters, the army escalated its tactics, first to include tank, helicopter gunship and missile fire, and then, after a booby trap and shooting ambush killed 13 soldiers, it was decided to use bulldozers to avert further Israeli casualties. Loudspeakers were used to warn Palestinians to leave the houses.
According to the Palestinians, the army’s shootings and bulldozers killed many civilians. On Friday, relatives of wheel-chair bound Jamal Fa’id, 37, watched in Jenin camp as a bulldozer dug for his remains. Soldiers had refused to allow people to rescue him before bulldozing the house, his brother said.
From the beginning, the fighting did not go as planned, Mr Ben-Hagai says. A soldier stepped on cement in an alley and discovered that it was wired. "I was a bit shocked because this booby trap was in a place where it could easily have killed Palestinians."
After more such experiences and two fatalities over two days, the approach was changed. "The commander said ‘Look, bring out the infantry missiles, the heavy machine-guns, the helicopters and the tanks’," Mr Ben-Hagai said. "Then our mission became to locate targets for the helicopters and tanks using a map and binoculars.
"There was enormous time pressure, because if the soldiers stayed in the houses they were in, and did not progress, then they would become easy targets.
"In our case, three people authorised each target. We looked all the time for civilians, for kids and old people," he said. "An armoured personnel carrier with a microphone kept calling out that the civilians have to leave their houses and go to Jenin city. It might be true that many people didn’t hear this, but the armoured personnel carrier with the microphone went all over the place."
He says the bulldozers were brought in after the deadly ambush. "Every few houses there would be an announcement saying surrender and go to Jenin. People came out of houses and fighters surrendered. But for sure, not all of the houses destroyed had heavy firing coming from them.
"The bulldozer is huge - to get to a given house it will break four or five houses on the way. My feeling is there were no civilians in the houses at this time. Some civilians were found, but I think these people were hit by army shooting previously and did not die from the bulldozers."
Asked about the UN inquiry, Mr Ben-Hagai said: "The Palestinian problem is sad enough without making theatre out of it. It’s been sad since 1948. People are manipulating this."
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