U.N. Jenin Report "Seriously Flawed": Human Rights Watch
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The U.N. report presents a “watered-down account of very serious violations in Jenin,” said HRW |
NEW YORK, August 2
(IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.N. report on events in Jenin
is seriously flawed, Human Rights Watch said Friday, August 2, 2002.
The report, mandated by a U.N. General Assembly resolution after
Israeli objections forced the Secretary-General to disband a U.N.
fact-finding team, largely limits itself to presenting competing
accounts of the events during the Israeli military incursions.
"The
report doesn't move us forward in terms of establishing the
truth," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East
and North Africa Division of HRW. "Its watered-down account of
the very serious violations in Jenin exposes the risk of compiling a
report without any first-hand information," he added on the New
York-based human rights watchdog website.
While
the report describes some general allegations that have been made
about the conduct of the Israeli and Palestinian sides during the
Israeli incursion, it draws almost no conclusions on the merits of
those claims, said HRW.
It
makes only limited reference to the obligations of the parties under
international law, makes few clear conclusions about violations of
that law, and does not raise the issue of accountability for serious
violations that may have been committed, some of which rise to the
level of war crimes. Its information and analysis are strongest when
dealing with the blockage of humanitarian and medical access to the
camp.
Human
Rights Watch said part of the report's problems stems from the terms
of its mandate. Set up by a U.N. General Assembly resolution after the
Secretary-General was forced by Israel's objections to disband a U.N.
fact-finding mission, the report was collated from existing sources.
The report was hampered still further when the government of Israel
did not comply with the United Nation's request for information.
"Even
with what they had, they could have done more," Megally said.
Human
Rights Watch listed a number of failings in the report, including the
following:
- It refers to
the fact that civilians died in the incursion, without examining the
circumstances of their deaths. It makes no mention of the strong
evidence suggesting that some were willfully killed, such as Jamal
Fayid, a 37-year old paralyzed man, who was crushed in the rubble of
his home April 7 after Israeli occupation army soldiers refused to
allow his family time to remove him from their home before a bulldozer
destroyed it.
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Israeli objections forced U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to disband a U.N. fact-finding team |
- The U.N.
report mentions that missiles were "at times" fired from
helicopters, minimizing evidence suggesting that their use was intense
and indiscriminate in Jenin camp, particularly on April 6 when
missiles caught many sleeping civilians.
- In its
section dealing with abuses outside Jenin, the report fails to
consider the systematic targeting of the offices of Palestinian media
organizations, as well as the serious impediments faced by
international journalists and human rights monitors attempting to
document events.
- It does not
discuss what, if any, steps the parties have taken to investigate
credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian law
raised in the report – vital for ensuring accountability and
discouraging future violations.
The
British daily newspaper, The Independent, whose investigation
inside Jenin shortly after the incursion unearthed numerous
corroborating accounts of atrocities, reported Friday, that many of
the victims whose stories were published May 3 in the paper were not
mentioned in the U.N. report.
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.
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
Israeli army's complete bulldozing of an area of housing that measured
400 meters by 500 meters is not described, added The Independent.
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,” said The Independent, adding that it deliberately
draws no conclusions, but only compiles evidence from various sources.
Human
Rights Watch researchers spent three weeks on the ground, including in
Jenin camp, immediately following the massive Israeli incursion.
Researchers gathered detailed accounts from victims and witnesses,
carefully corroborating and independently crosschecking their accounts
with those of others to reconstruct a detailed picture of events in
the camp in April 2002.
The
findings were published in a 52-page report, "Jenin:
IDF Military Operations." In early May, the Israeli army made
a commitment to investigate every incident documented in the report.
To date, Human Rights Watch has had no response from the Israeli army
as to the progress of any such investigations.
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