U.N. Died over Rubble of Jenin Camp: Palestinian Refugees
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U.N. Died over Rubble of Jenin Camp - Palestinian Refugees
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TYRE,
Lebanon, August 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian
refugees in Lebanon demonstrated Friday, August 2, to protest a U.N.
report which claimed that Israel didn’t commit massacres in the
Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in April, a report that was
refuted by Palestinian officials and described by Human Rights Watch
as “seriously flawed.”
More
than 2,000 men, women and children held a sit-in in front of the
headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in this southern port city of tyre,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"The
U.N. report has cleared Israel of the Jenin massacre," said a
banner carried by the protestors, many of whom were waving Palestinian
flags and portraits of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
They
also raised portraits of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, U.S.
President George W. Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan bearing
the Star of David and reading: "Same Currency: World
Zionism."
The
crowd then paraded through the streets with a coffin wrapped with a
U.N. flag to symbolize the "death of the United Nations."
"We
present our condolences to [U.N. chief] Kofi Annan for the death of
the United Nations and its Security Council ...over the rubble of the
Jenin camp," read a sign on the coffin.
The
United Nations released Thursday, August 1, its report on Israel's
attack on Jenin in April. The report has been long awaited by
Palestinians and by human rights groups who accused the Israeli army
of war crimes in the Jenin refugee camp.
However,
the new report contained little new information and did not do much to
address those accusations, reported the British daily The Independent.
The
Israeli authorities did not allow the U.N. to visit Jenin to research
its report, but investigators from the independent Human Rights Watch
organization (HRW) who did visit the site shortly after the fighting
ended, found prima facie evidence of war crimes, the daily said.
An
investigation by The Independent inside Jenin shortly after the
fighting unearthed numerous corroborating accounts of atrocities.
Of
the many victims whose stories were published May 3 in the
Independent, only Fadwa Jamma, a Palestinian nurse who was shot
through the heart while trying to tend a wounded man is mentioned in
the new U.N. report. She was in full uniform and could be clearly
seen, the daily added.
Fourteen-year-old
Faris Zeben, who was shot dead by an Israeli tank when he went
shopping when the curfew was lifted, is not mentioned.
Nor
is Afaf Desuqi, killed when Israeli soldiers blew open the door of her
house as she tried to open it for them. Nor Kemal Zughayer, shot dead
as he tried to wheel himself up the road in his wheelchair, the paper
added.
The
Israeli army's complete bulldozing of an area of housing that measured
400 meters by 500 meters is not described. The report notes that 150
buildings were destroyed.
There
is no mention of evidence found by both HRW and Amnesty International
that extrajudicial killings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers took
place.
“The
U.N. report is carefully worded not to give offence to Israel or its
allies. It deliberately draws no conclusions, but only compiles
evidence from various sources,” it added.
It
came about after the debacle when a fact-finding mission mandated by
the U.N. security council was refused access to Jenin by the Israeli
authorities, who originally said they would cooperate.
“Because
the U.N. was refused access, the report is based entirely on evidence
from secondary sources, much of it already in the public domain.
Despite being invited to, the Israeli government did not provide any
evidence,” the paper said.
"The
U.N.'s report is seriously flawed," said Miranda Sissons, a
co-author of the HRW report on Jenin. "It could have done much
more and it doesn't move us forward in trying to establish the truth.
It's a good example of the dangers of doing a report with no access to
evidence on the ground."
Meanwhile,
Gulf newspapers said Friday the U.N. report on Jenin was a
"bitter disappointment," accusing U.N. chief Kofi Annan of
bending to accommodate U.S. demands, AFP reported.
"The
shameful report ... put the [Israeli] executioner on equal footing
with the [Palestinian] victim and granted the malicious occupier the
right to massacre an innocent people that are only using their right
to defend themselves," said Al-Bayan of the United Arab Emirates.
"The
United Nations should change its name to the 'Organization of American
Nations' because instead of adopting decisions in complete freedom and
independence, the U.N. has become hostage to U.S. policy," it
said.
The
daily accused U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan of "not wanting
to anger the world's masters."
The
Dubai-based Gulf News called the report a "bitter disappointment
... sourced on dubious public information" that chose to ignore
"unbiased eyewitness accounts of reputed international media in
favor of Israel's version of events."
The
report "fails to take into account that the [Palestinian]
fighters are resisting an Israeli military machine that has had the
run of Palestinian territories for years and has been wantonly
targeting and killing civilians in a bid to suppress the identity of
the occupied people."
Qatar's
Al-Raya newspaper said the long-awaited report would "encourage
[Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon to carry out new massacres
against the Palestinians and reinforce the stance of Palestinians who
choose resistance."
"Kofi
Annan should have defended his organization’s principles, but it
seems that he chose to stay in the [U.N.] building and not upset its
American owners," said Al-Sharq, also of Qatar.
Annan
"should have done as his predecessor Boutros Boutros-Ghali did,
presenting a fair report into the Qana massacre that took place in
April 1996," the paper said.
Okaz
of Saudi Arabia said the report was "another bad-taste joke to
add to the other jokes of the U.N., which has become an administrative
body for the U.S. State Department."
For
the Riyadh-based Al-Bilad, the report "reflects again the
weakness of the U.N. in the face of U.S. hegemony and the criminal
Israeli attitude."
Palestinian
Officials Reject U.N. Report on Jenin
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