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Palestinian woman covers her face as she walks through rubble
and debris in the center of Jenin
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UNITED
NATIONS, May 15 (News Agencies) – Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday, May 14, that the reparation
of the United Nations report on the events that took place last month
in the Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank town of Jenin has
begun and is expected to take six weeks.
Eckhard
said that letters requesting information from the Israeli government
and the Palestinian Authority about the incidents were being drawn up
and would be sent out "in the next day or so," reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This
report was requested by an overwhelming majority of countries taking
part in an emergency General Assembly session convened last Tuesday to
discuss the situation in the Middle East.
The
Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of committing war crimes and
massacring Palestinians during their assault on the Jenin refugee camp
from April 3 through 12, accusations that Israel denies.
"The
United Nations," added Eckhard, "expects the preparation of
the report to take six weeks or so."
The
spokesman noted that "there will be no progress reports"
before the final report is presented to Annan.
The
General Assembly voted 120 in favor, four against, and six abstaining
to commission the report from Annan.
The
assembly met at the request of the Arab world after the issue of Jenin
paralyzed the Security Council. Despite hours of closed door
discussions and public debate the council could not come to a
consensus on how to respond to Israel's refusal to receive a
fact-finding mission to shed light on the events in Jenin.
Meanwhile,
Israel has come under attack from the human rights organization
Amnesty International, which accuses it of torture and inhuman
treatment of Palestinians during the recent Israeli operation in the
West Bank, AFP reported.
"During
the latest Israeli incursions into Palestinian refugee camps and other
residential areas, thousands of Palestinians have been arrested, held
in prolonged incommunicado detention and subjected to cruel and
degrading treatment," Amnesty said in a briefing submitted
Tuesday to the U.N. Committee against Torture (CAT).
The
CAT will discuss Wednesday, May 15, the situation in Israel and the
Palestinian territories for the second time in six months.
In
November, the U.N. Committee had called on Israel to investigate
allegations of torture by its security forces against Palestinians,
and said it was unconvinced that all such acts had stopped after a
1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling.
Amnesty
said the CAT held that "administrative detention without charge
or trial, which has recently increased enormously, might constitute
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
"AI
considers the nature and severity of the suffering inflicted by the
systematic practice of house demolitions without absolute military
necessity, closures and the use of human shields is so grave that they
may amount to torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention
against Torture."
Israel
launched a massive military offensive on Palestinian territories in
the West Bank in late March.
It
has come under international criticism, in particular for destruction
in the Jenin refugee camp, which was virtually leveled in attacks that
left at least 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers dead.
Amnesty
also condemned "the rising number" of prison sentences
imposed in Israel on soldiers and reservists for refusing to perform
military service in the occupied territories.
In
a statement ahead of the International day of the Conscientious
Objector Wednesday, Amnesty said: "This rise is the result of a
growing concern of conscripts, soldiers and reservists about some of
the actions taken by the Israeli Defense Forces."
The
human rights group called on the Israeli government "to release
immediately all those who have been imprisoned because they refused to
serve in the Israeli army for reasons of conscience or profound
conviction".
"Conscientious
objectors in Israel are imprisoned for weeks and sometimes months,
normally after unfair trials," Amnesty added.
"In
many cases they serve multiple prison sentences. Since the beginning
of the intifada at least 114 conscientious objectors have been
imprisoned with about 20 of them serving prison sentences at
present."
