U.N. Jenin Report Lashed out!

A Human Rights Watch report, May 2002, concluded that 'Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes' and a recent report of Amnesty International ,July 2002, refers to Israeli grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention i.e. war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The UN, under heavy pressure from the lobbyists amid veto threats by the world super power, issued recently the much awaited for report on the Israeli perpetrated massacre in Jenin Camp. Disappointingly, the report came as a sudden shock for many human rights and law groups. Among the failures is the lack of concrete measures to ensure respect of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the adoption, in most of its parts, of the Israeli dictated version.
The U.N. report on events in Jenin is seriously flawed, Human Rights Watch said. "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 Human Rights Watch. "Its watered-down account of the very serious violations in Jenin exposes the risk of compiling a report without any first-hand information." While the report describes some general allegations that have been made about the conduct of the Israeli and Palestinian sides during the Israeli operation, it draws almost no conclusions on the merits of those claims. 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.
The Group cited examples of failures in the report including: It refers to the fact that civilians died in the operation, 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 on April 7 after Israeli soldiers refused to allow his family time to remove him from their HOME before a bulldozer destroyed it. 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.
For its part, the Palestinian LAW Society, said: " Unfortunately, this disappointing report fails to provide the full context, does not geographically cover all Palestinian cities, omits vital information and fails to make sound conclusions and meaningful recommendations. LAW believes " the UN has failed to discharge its obligations to adequately assess and determine the facts from all evidence available and to provide meaningful recommendations. The report provides false legitimacy to Israeli claims that its military actions were only acts of 'self defence', designed to 'defeat the Palestinian terror infrastructure'. Kofi Annan's report does so in part by ignoring the context, namely Israel's ongoing 'illegal occupation', a term which Kofi Annan himself introduced on March 12, referring to the illegal basis on which the occupation has been used to further Israel's annexation policies and settlement activities. Israel's military actions have instead furthered its underlying annexationist designs, as more recently evidenced by its current physical, direct re-occupation of the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Moreover, the report uses the term 'terrorism' and 'terrorists' without definition, and only in reference to acts committed by Palestinians, but fails to address the issue of Israeli state acts designed to spread terror among the civilian Palestinian population, namely state terrorism. In spite of the large body of evidence provided to the UNSG's office and conclusions drawn by international agencies, the report fails to conclude that Israel has committed or potentially committed grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other war crimes, even though the report refers to 'allegations' of unlawful killings, the use of human shields, disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrests and torture and denial of medical treatment and access. The report was meant to cover events in Jenin and other key Palestinian Cities. However, most of the report covers events in Jenin alone, with some limited references to events in Nablus, Ramallah and Bethlehem, and fails altogether to investigate events in Hebron, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
LAW takes issue with a number of the detailed conclusions. For instance, although the report refers to attacks on Palestinian Authority civilian infrastructure and 'military targets', it completely ignored evidence provided of deliberate targeting of offices of non-governmental organizations, including human rights organizations, media offices, civilians in civilian areas outside battle areas, and the deliberate physical destruction of other key civilian infrastructure such as water, electricity and telephone lines; all of which belies Israeli claims that it was only seeking to 'root out terror bases'. The report refers to Israeli claims that approximately 11,000 inhabitants of Jenin refugee camp were allowed to 'depart voluntarily', when the Israeli army first surrounded the camp. However, as Kofi Annan was informed by LAW and others, the Israeli government acknowledged in its own state response to three High Court petitions (HC 3114/02, 3115/02,3116/02) submitted by LAW and others to stop the removal of dead bodies from Jenin refugee camp, that 'up to the evening of April 7th 2002,hardly anyone had left the camp, and then around 100 people left'.

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