Hundreds of victims 'were buried by bulldozer in mass grave'
(Filed: 13/04/2002)

DAVID BLAIR sees tanks in action in Jenin, now a closed military zone, and hears claims of massacres by Israeli troops as gunfire echoes from the camps.

With Israeli tanks roaring through the streets around him yesterday and gunfire echoing from the refugee camps nearby, Daud - a Palestinian who claimed to have witnessed the bloodshed - said a bulldozer had entombed a row of bodies in a mass grave.

Israeli soldiers dug the hole four days ago, he said, and filled it yesterday morning with "hundreds" of corpses of Palestinians killed during the battle for the West Bank town of Jenin. This operation has become the costliest of Israel's onslaught against areas controlled by the Palestinian authority.

An Israeli armoured vehicle passes Palestinian prisoners in Jenin

Twenty-three soldiers have been lost, including 13 killed during one ambush. Yet the number of Palestinian dead has aroused the fiercest controversy. People in the towns around Jenin say that more than 500 were killed, while in the neighbouring village of Burqin 384 child refugees are being cared for.

By contrast, Israeli military sources put the Palestinian death toll at 200. Jenin has been declared a closed military zone, from which the Israelis have sought to exclude journalists and aid workers alike.

The ring of steel around the town, and particularly the refugee camp where the fighting was fiercest, has prompted accusations that Israeli soldiers are covering up the human toll of their operation.

By following a goat path over a rocky hilltop, it was possible to reach Jenin yesterday. Clouds of dust rose into the air as two tanks and six armoured personnel carriers (APCs) roared along the main road.

Watching from the hills above Jenin were another six tanks, while the grating whine of the engines of those moving among the ramshackle streets was constantly audible. Inside the town, Daud, (not his real name) said he had fled the refugee camp half an hour earlier.

"All the houses have been hit by missiles; 400 houses have been destroyed," he said. Supported by Apache Attack Helicopters, Israeli troops fought for control of Jenin refugee camp, house by house.

Daud, who is in his forties, accused them of killing civilians who crossed their path. He described how the body of a 10-year-old boy, whose arm had been blown off, lay unburied in the street for three days.

But according to Daud, Israeli soldiers had just completed a major effort to hide the corpses. On Monday, he said, they brought bulldozers to dig a large hole in the Harat al-Harashin area of Jenin refugee camp, where the destruction was greatest.

He claimed to have seen bodies being thrown into this hole. He claimed to recognise two of the dead and named them as Mohamed Kamal and Nidal Mubani. By yesterday the grave was full, he said.

Daud said: "A huge bulldozer came and covered the bodies with earth. They are all buried." Asked how many bodies the grave contained, Daud said "hundreds". But he only saw two corpses being placed inside it himself.

His story is impossible to verify, for Israeli soldiers have succeeded in completely sealing off the Jenin camp. Nonetheless, the wisdom of digging a mass grave in a Palestinian refugee camp is questionable, as it would be sure to be dug up as soon as calm returned.

An Israeli army spokesman dismissed the suggestion. "It's just a story. It's science fiction. We deal with this sort of fiction whenever we have operations," he said.

Sporadic bursts of gunfire showed that a mopping-up operation was continuing yesterday, although the last pockets of organised Palestinian resistance were crushed on Thursday.

While it may be impossible to confirm any of the claims, people in Jenin offer numerous accounts of Israeli soldiers killing civilians. Barakhat Jaba'i said he saw his house being destroyed by a missile fired from an Apache helicopter.

A neighbouring house, he added, was hit and all four people inside killed. International aid agencies have criticised Israel for sealing off areas and harassing relief workers.

The International Red Cross said that its Palestinian staff had been shot at and "humiliated" by Israeli soldiers.