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http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0409/p06s01-wome.html
UN
warns of West Bank 'horror'
Christian
Science Monitor April 9, 2002
A high-profile
UN mission to investigate human rights abuses in the Mideast may
begin today.
By Ben Lynfield
| Special to the Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM
– Amal Azzeh considers herself lucky compared with many of the
approximately 300,000 Palestinians who have come under renewed
Israeli army occupation. The Azzehs, who live in Beit Jubrin Refugee
Camp in Bethlehem, had stocked up on food before Israeli tanks
conquered the area nine days ago and the army put the camp under
a strict curfew. Her brother, Yunis, who lives outside the camp,
did not. "He does not have enough bread to eat, and you can generalize
that this is the case for much of the population, especially for
people who have children."
Ben Lynfield
gives you the story behind the story.
Amid mounting
charges by human rights groups of abuses by Israeli troops, UN
human rights chief Mary Robinson plans to start a Middle East
fact-finding mission as early as Tuesday evening or tomorrow,
her spokeswoman said yesterday. The mission, which is pending
Israeli approval, includes former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe
Gonzalez and South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, a former
leader of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. The mission's
mandate includes reporting on suicide bombings, and it will also
examine human rights in the West Bank, which is currently under
assault by Israeli troops.
UN officials
yesterday described a situation of "pure horror" in northern West
Bank camps, with strafing from Israeli helicopters, corpses piling
up and ambulances and food trucks being barred by the army.
"There is
a humanitarian disaster in the making," says Richard Cook, West
Bank field director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Israel launched
the incursions after a devastating series of suicide bombings,
including one on Passover eve in Netanya that killed 27 people
at a religious gathering. Diplomatic pressure from the US has
failed to slow the assault, and Israeli army officials say it
is dealing a blow to "terrorist infrastructure" through arrests
of those involved in attacks and the seizure of weapons. About
1,500 Palestinians have been arrested, with 261 of those previously
wanted by Israeli security forces, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
said yesterday.
Army officials
say that care is being taken to avoid harming civilians, but that
Palestinian fighters deliberately "operate from within large population
centers and therefore cause innocent civilians to be drawn into
the line of fire."
Concern over
the plight of Palestinian civilians is heightened by Israel's
track record of causing, in the view of human rights groups, many
avoidable deaths of civilians by using excessive force, and its
failure to complete investigations against troops for alleged
misuse of weapons. The fact that it has barred reporters and human
rights field workers from the areas it invaded is also fueling
concern.
Six human
rights groups gathered in Jerusalam Sunday, including Amnesty
International, Israel's B'tselem organization, and the Palestinian
LAW organization and said that based on the limited information
they could garner, the civilian population is being greatly harmed.
One group, the World Organization Against Torture, called for
European economic sanctions against Israel.
Jessica Montell,
director of B'tselem said: "There are very severe allegations
from refugee camps, many of which cannot be verified. But there
is a great deal we know: large-scale casualties, very severe interruptions
of medical treatment to the injured, tremendous suffering to the
civilian population, torture of detainees." The prime minister's
office declined to comment on B'tselem's allegations, based on
reports from soldiers, that interrogators at the Ofer army base
are breaking the toes of Palestinians.
Ms. Azzeh,
speaking as shooting resounded nearby, says camp residents have
had no chance to buy food. The only break in the curfew came when
it was lifted Saturday for two hours. But, she says, soldiers
shot and wounded several people during the break, and residents
rushed home without the much-needed supplies.
Medicines
have also run out, Azzeh says. On Saturday, a girl in the camp
had an epilectic fit, she said. Only with the intervention of
foreigners did they manage to get medicine – after a two-to-three-hour
delay. "This is a small thing," she says. "The suffering here
in general is that you cannot breathe the air. If there are tanks
nearby, you can't even look out the window. You may get shot."
Peter Hansen,
director of the UN agency that operates in Palestinian refugee
camps, amplified the criticisms of the human rights groups yesterday,
saying of the Balata and Jenin camps in the northern West Bank:
"We are getting reports of pure horror – that helicopters are
strafing civilian residential areas, that systematic shelling
by tanks has created hundreds of wounded, that bulldozers are
razing refugee homes and that food and medicine will soon run
out. In the name of human decency the Israeli military must allow
our ambulances safe passage to help evacuate the wounded and deliver
emergency supplies of medicine and food."
On the only
occasion where ambulance access was officially permitted, the
vehicle was shot at, UN officials say. They add that bodies are
piling up in the corridors of Jenin hospital and are strewn in
the streets of the refugee camp. Additionally, the operating theater
at the hospital has run out of oxygen, and the supply of medicines
is about to run out.
Raanan Gissin,
the spokesman for Sharon, says troops must inspect ambulances
because Palestinians have used them to transport weapons. "This
slows down their movement, but the Palestinians have only themselves
to blame," he said.
Israeli army
officials add that soldiers do all they can "to prevent harming
innocent civilians and provide them with necessary humanitarian
assistance." The officials said that the army has supplied food,
water, and medicine to cities in which combat is taking place
and that it facilitates humanitarian aid by international organizations
"when circumstances allow."
Gissin accused
human rights groups of allowing themselves to be manipulated to
serve the Palestinian cause. "We are seeing a recycling of lies,"
he said. "Every time the Palestinians have a problem, they get
these tendentious reports to be issued," he said.
David Kimche,
former director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, said:
"Unfortunately the statements by the human rights groups won't
have a big effect. What can have impact is what the United States
is saying and doing."
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