April 9, 2002	Tuesday	Muharram 25, 1423

NABLUS, April 8: The Israeli army told residents of the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on Monday to evacuate their homes or get ready to be bombed.

Five days of relentless bombardment by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships have left large parts of the camp of 13,000 inhabitants in ruins, with Palestinians charging that people were bleeding to death in its alleys for lack of medical care.

Palestinians estimate more than 100 people have been killed by Israeli fire since the army ringed the camp last Wednesday in what it said was part of an offensive to root out militants responsible for a spate of suicide attacks on Israelis.

Soldiers have battled a hard core of gunmen and policemen holed up inside and have seized control of most of the camp.

The Israeli army has confirmed “numerous casualties” but has declined to give an exact death count. The figures could not be independently verified as journalists and medics were being kept out by the Israeli army.

Residents who fled to safe havens outside the camp describe decomposing bodies littering narrow alleys.

They spoke of seeing wounded Palestinians moaning for help. The army denies deliberately leaving dead and wounded unattended and says it cannot rescue people when under fire.

“If field reports we are getting are accurate, we have a humanitarian disaster unseen before in the West Bank,” Sami Mshasha, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said.

UNRWA’s communications with the camp director broke down two days ago after his two-way radio battery ran out, with no chance of recharging it due to a power cut, Mshasha said.

The Palestinian Authority has warned that “another Sabra and Shatila massacre was being repeated at the Jenin refugee camp”, referring to the 1982 killing of hundreds of Palestinians at two Beirut refugee camps by Israeli-backed Lebanese militias.

Israel dismisses the reference to massacres as “pure propaganda”. Brigadier-General Eyal Klein, Jenin regional commander, said the army was using “precision strikes” in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.

“I reckon there are civilians among their casualties, but only because they are being used as human shields by the gunmen,” he told Reuters.

“Just today some of my men were hit when they went into a building where there were injured civilians, and as they were attending to them they came under fire.”

The camp, where Israel says many militants responsible for attacks inside Israel are based, became a focus of the West Bank offensive.

“OVER OUR DEAD BODIES”: Palestinians and policemen have joined forces vowing to defend their community. Outgunned and outnumbered, they have managed to put up stiff resistance to the Israelis.

“Israel occupied the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights in six days (in the 1967 Middle East war),” one resident said. “How come they are finding it difficult to take a tiny camp despite five days of fighting?”

Israeli troops have gradually made their way inside the camp, flattening houses to allow tanks to drive through. Fighters reached by telephone have repeatedly vowed that Israeli troops would take the camp only “over our dead bodies”.

The Israeli army has acknowledged the resistance. Nine soldiers have been killed in the camp. Palestinians say the residents of the camp, whose original inhabitants came from the Haifa area in what is now Israel, are known for strong attachment to the homes they say they were driven from by Israeli troops in 1948.

“The long years of deprivation and very strong belief in their right to return to their homes is the main driver behind this resilience,” said Fakhri Turkman, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.—Reuters