'The stench of death is over many places'

April 19, 2002


Standing in the devastated heart of the Jenin refugee camp yesterday, Mr Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN's special envoy, castigated the Israeli government for what he called "a sad and disgraceful chapter" in Israeli history and urged that it give full and "immediate access" to the UN and international aid organisations, writes David Horovitz, in Jerusalem

Mr Larsen, one of the mediators who helped shape the now-collapsed Oslo peace accords, said he could not resolve the huge discrepancies between Palestinian and Israeli claims over the number of people killed in the camp last week. But he called the scene "horrifying beyond belief. It looks like there's been an earthquake here," he said, "and the stench of death is over many places where we are standing."

Palestinian officials, accusing Israel of carrying out a massacre, say 500 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including many civilians, trapped when Israel bulldozed buildings in the centre of the camp. Israeli officials deny this, saying that several dozen Palestinians died, almost all of them gunmen, that civilians had been encouraged to leave for their own safety, and that the camp was an Islamic Jihad stronghold from which a series of suicide bombers were dispatched.

"Israel has a right to self-defence through legitimate means," said Mr Larsen. "The means that have been used here are illegitimate and morally repugnant."

Israel had now produced a far greater "psychological" terror infrastructure, "because the hatred and the aggression against Israel and Israelis has reached a new peak."

Israeli troops pulled out of Jenin yesterday, and residents poured back in to search for missing relatives. Mr Larsen said that 2,000 people were homeless - half of them children. "I think this is absolutely, totally unacceptable and unheard of, that an occupying power keeps a curfew and keeps a huge proportion of the civilian population suffering day by day," he said. "This has to stop."

In Washington, President Bush appeared to undermine his Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, newly returned from his failed ceasefire mission. Mr Powell had seemed to sympathise with the Palestinian position that there could be no meaningful ceasefire effort while Israeli troops were deployed in and around Palestinian cities. But Mr Bush said the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, had "started withdrawing" troops and was standing by an agreed "timetable", while Mr Arafat would be "called to account" if he did not work to thwart terrorism.

Mr Sharon was "a man of peace" who "wants Israel to be able to exist at peace with its neighbour," Mr Bush said. Mr Bush also appeared to back the continuing troop presence in Bethlehem and around Mr Arafat's besieged Ramallah headquarters.