JERUSALEM, April 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Israeli army admitted Friday, April 12, to murdering hundreds of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp, in what U.N. chief Kofi Annan described an “appalling” massacre.

With the soaring death toll still controversial, the Palestinian Authority asked for an international inquiry on Jenin and invited visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to inspect the camp for evidence of Israeli army brutality, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

A senior army official told AFP under condition of anonymity that Israel "estimates the Palestinian losses at about 250 dead" in the camp, but the Palestinians put the death toll at a much higher estimate.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said this week that some reports indicated about 100 Palestinians were killed in the Jenin camp Saturday, April 6, alone. The Palestinians said 500 people were killed by the Israelis in the impoverished refugee camp.

With the battle over, Jenin Mayor Walid Abu Mweiss said Friday that the Israeli army was detaining "thousands of men, between the age of 15 and 50," in the town of Jenin.

An Israeli army spokesman denied there were any "mass" arrests in the area, but confirmed that security sweeps were continuing in the town of Jenin.

The Palestinians separately appealed to the United Nations to launch an international inquiry into what the Israelis had done in the refugee camp.

"We call on the United Nations to immediately create an international commission of inquiry on the Israeli massacres at Jenin because it is a U.N.-administered refugee camp," said senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat.

He told AFP the Israeli army's acknowledgement that the Jenin fighting left heavy casualties was "an admission by the Israeli government of massacres against our people."

Witness reports of the Israelis demolishing Jenin homes while families cowered inside, then stripping and beating detainees before marching them off naked into nearby woods, have cast a shadow over Israel's argument that it was acting in self defense, said AFP.

The world finally got to see what Israel has done in Jenin: piles of rubble where homes once stood; gaping holes rent in the sides of buildings; electricity wires torn down and strewn amid the wreckage, water flooding out of broken mains and running down the broken streets. These scenes of devastation will haunt the mission of Colin Powell, who flew in Thursday.

Hundreds of Palestinians fled their camp Thursday, an empty, smoking ruin resounding to bursts of Israeli machine gun-fire. They left behind entire neighborhoods flattened to make way for Israeli armor who massacred indiscriminately elderly women and young boys and girls. Those spared drank sewage water and live with rotting corpses of Palestinian civilians.

The operation began with rocketing from helicopter gun-ships and bulldozers moved in to finish the job.

Palestinians said they witnessed the execution and the dumping of at least 150 Palestinians, who were killed in “the concentration camp” by the Israeli occupation army.

Resistance leader in Jenin, Sheikh Gamal Abul Heiga, confirmed that following the fall of the refugee camp Wednesday morning in the hands of the Israelis, the occupation army then publicly started executing a large number of Palestinian youth.

Palestinian detainees tell horrific tales of their treatment by the Israelis. One said he was forced to strip naked and act as a human shield, standing with an Israeli soldier behind him resting his gun on his shoulder. Another said when he asked for a drink the soldiers forced a stick into his mouth. Then, he said, they brought him water that tasted of urine.

The Israeli army has encircled the camp with tanks, and shot at, or arrested, journalists approaching the area. The accounts of the killing of civilians and the massive destruction of civilian homes suggest a grave abuse of human rights.

Ali Mustafa Abu Siria, 43, an Arabic teacher, was carried to hospital on a ladder - nursing a gunshot wound to the left knee that had gone untreated for four days. Doctors said it was badly infected. He was injured while serving as a human shield for an Israeli army patrol, who led him out of his home handcuffed and at gunpoint on Friday.

Doctors at Al-Razi hospital in Jenin said a man bled to death on its doorstep after Israeli soldiers prevented medics from retrieving his body.

At dusk on Thursday, the refugee camp was hit by 10 explosions in the space of an hour.

A new wave of refugees streamed out of the camp - including many children - scavenging for food. A few hours earlier, Riyad Ghalib Damaj, 28, a produce seller, also smuggled himself out with a group of women and children fleeing the camp.