Palestinian homeless see their refugee camp reduced to rubble/title> <meta name="description" content="A comprehensive guide to Web sites and individual Web documents relating to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."> <meta name="keywords" content="Palestine,Palestinian,Palestinians,Israel,Zionist,Zionists,Zionism,Middle East,Mideast,ethnic cleansing,civil rights,social justice,human rights"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <style TYPE="text/css">  </style> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#990000" vlink="#990000"> <BR> <b>Palestinian homeless see their refugee camp reduced to rubble</b><BR> <BR> May 3, 2002<BR> <BR> <BR> MIDDLE EAST: The refugee camp has changed beyond recognition since her last visit, writes Michael Jansen, in Jenin<BR> <BR> We begin the descent to Jenin from the Israeli-Arab hill village of Salem, scrambling down a rocky slope to a rough track where two orange mini-buses are waiting. Main roads to Jenin are still closed by the Israeli army, so once again we go by way of a "back door" courtesy of "the people-smugglers".<BR> <BR> The bone-crunching ride takes us through stands of olive trees, over an Israeli barricade and into the West Bank village of Rummaneh.<BR> <BR> Here my companions, 14 representatives of Palestinian educational and welfare institutions from East Jerusalem, are welcomed with a round of Turkish coffee in the garden of our host and guide, Mr Ragheb al-Ahmad, the Palestinian Authority's director of energy for the Jenin area.<BR> <BR> The group, led by Mr Abdel Kader Husseini, son of the late Faisal Husseini, the leading Palestinian political figure in the Holy City, is the first solidarity mission from Jerusalem to visit stricken Jenin.<BR> <BR> Protocol dictates that we call on the governor of the district, Mr Zuhair Almanasreh. The sprawling buildings of the governance are wrecked, some blown up, others gutted, so we make our way to a nearby villa, the governor's temporary headquarters. After welcoming the delegation, Mr Almanasreh speaks of the disbanding of the UN fact-finding mission.<BR> <BR> He tells The Irish Times: "It would have been a big achievement to send this mission to gather information on what happened here. We did not expect much to be done. Israel has rejected all UN and Security Council resolutions . . . but it is a pity that the world will not learn what took place."<BR> <BR> He praised the efforts of international human rights activists like Ms Caoimhe Butterly from Cork who is still in Jenin trying to document events in the refugee camp.<BR> <BR> In the two weeks since I was last here, the landscape of the camp has changed out of all recognition.<BR> <BR> It consists of shifting mound of rubble, rubbish and large chunks of cement and stone. Huge earthmovers are everywhere. Men, women and children wander aimlessly from one mound to another.<BR> <BR> Most of the buildings at the epicentre of the fight between Palestinian defenders and the Israeli army, known as "Ground Zero", have been bulldozed or pulled down. By present count, 1,350 families are homeless.<BR> <BR> The most tenacious refugees refuse to leave their condemned homes or camp in makeshift tents.<BR> <BR> An elderly man digs where the second floor of his house lies buried. He is searching for his savings and his wife's jewellery.<BR> <BR> A woman at the bottom of the mound is also scraping in the dust. She is looking for the wedding rings of her son and future daughter-in-law.<BR> <BR> We are told not to stray from well-worn routes because of unexploded ordnance. I am taken to the third floor of a blasted building to see a live tank round still embedded in a floor. There are two muffled explosions while we are walking round.<BR> <BR> Martyrs' faces stare at us from every wall, every shop window. Youths, children, men and women, honoured, loved, remembered.<BR> <BR> We end by paying a condolence call on the parents of Qais Adwan Abu Jander, a 25-year-old engineering graduate of al-Najah University in Nablus, killed in the battle for the camp.<BR> <BR> On the long ride home, several people from Jerusalem argue that "Ground Zero" should be preserved as proof of man's inhumanity to man. The people who lived there though want their homes to rise again where they once stood as proof of their steadfastness.<BR> <BR> </body> </html>