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Israel pullout4 Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$IWRB3RYAAF115QFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2002/04/16/wmid16.xml&sSheet=/portal/2002/04/16/ixport.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$IWRB3RYAAF115QFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2002/04/16/wmid16.xml&sSheet=/portal/2002/04/16/ixport.html
Blasted to rubble by the Israelis
By David Blair in Jenin refugee camp
(Filed: 16/04/2002)
ISRAEL'S onslaught on the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin has led to the systematic devastation of once teeming streets inhabited by 15,000 people.
A Palestininan woman searches the rubble that was once the main square in Jenin refugee camp
Inside the camp, a vast open space 400 yards by 400 yards has been pounded, blasted and ground to rubble by tanks, helicopters and bulldozers.
For more than a week a ring of tanks and armoured cars has kept journalists and aid workers from the scene of the largest operation by the Israeli forces against Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
When we penetrated into the exclusion zone yesterday, by walking across a hilltop and finding an unguarded flank, it became clear why the Israelis had done their utmost to shield Jenin camp from prying eyes.
The camp, still a closed zone, lies in the heart of Jenin Town that once consisted of tightly packed flat-roofed houses. All but a few streets have been blown apart.
In the Harat al-Hawashin area, which has been worst hit, the streets have ceased to exist, with half of the area dipping into a large crater strewn with wreckage.
All the paraphernalia of normal life littered the ground: lavatory paper, shoe boxes, sanitary towels, buckets, crockery, chairs and clothes.
Hanging over everything was the sickly smell of rotting corpses, an unknown number of which lay under the rubble. The reek of cordite blended with an intense burning smell almost like the scent of baking bread.
The scale of the destruction suggested that the Israelis had used more than tanks, helicopters and bulldozers. Demolition charges may also have been laid to raze Harat al-Hawashin.
Dazed people gathered around what remained of their homes. Riad Hussain, 30, saw a house receive a direct hit from a rocket fired by an Apache attack helicopter. The women and baby inside were killed.
Sixteen-year-old Fahdi Jamir, who lives on the edge of the worst devastation, said he saw seven arms and legs among the rubble.
Kamal Anis, 28, said he saw an Israeli bulldozer scooping up 30 bodies and dumping them beside a ruined house. It knocked down the building, covering the corpses with rubble. It then drove over the pile, levelling it into a crude mass grave.
Standing at the point where Mr Anis said this had occurred, the stench of death was overpowering. Furious people vented their anger at Israel and, in particular, Ariel Sharon, the prime minister.
"Murder, this is murder," Rajeb Ahmed said. "Sharon is a murderer."
Last night, in an interview with CNN, Mr Sharon said that his forces might withdraw from Jenin in a couple of days and from Nablus in "not more than a week".
But he gave no timetable for leaving Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, has been penned in his compound for four months.
In the fighting in Jenin, the home of many of the Palestinian suicide bombers who have terrorised Israelis in the past year, the Israeli security forces suffered their heaviest casualties in the two-week-long operation in the West Bank. They included 13 killed in a single ambush.
The Israeli forces say that about 70 Palestinians died in Jenin. The extent of the destruction indicates that the Palestinian estimate of hundreds may be more accurate.
Inside one house, now reduced to a shell, the wall was blackened by fire and scarred by machine gun bullets.
The smell of cordite hung over a twisted, scorched object that appeared to have been flung into a corner. There was a foot, a leg and a face, all burned beyond recognition.
A man named only as Bashar once lived there, in the heart of the refugee camp.
Mr Bashar lay yards from the remains of Ashraf Abu Hija, 23, in an adjoining room. He was buried in rubble to his head and shoulders.
Both men died when their home was destroyed by an incendiary shell fired from an Israeli tank.
The surrounding streets presented a scene of utter destruction. Every house in al-Awdi street has been torn apart by bullets, tank shells, rockets and heavy calibre machine guns.
Whole sides of cars have penetrated walls, scattering rubble over every patch of ground. Concrete has become mixed with earth, broken glass with blackened brick, four mattresses with 20mm cartridge cases, leaking gas cylinders with glinting shrapnel.
The reaction to the Israelis' operation, billed as a counter terrorism campaign, suggested that it might prove counter-productive.
Jamal Mohammed, 45, said: "We hate the Israelis more now."
Pointing at his eight-year-old son, Mr Mohammed added: "This child has seen what has happened. Now he will hate the Israelis."
Nearby, five bodies, grotesquely charred and twisted, lay in the rubble. Jenin camp is full of fearful faces.
Inside a bullet-scarred house, partially demolished by a bulldozer, were seven-year-old Araj and Sobhia, nine. The sisters were neatly dressed in blue and pink outfits, with bows in their hair. Their eyes were attentive.
Neither knew that their father was dead. A family friend said that Israeli soldiers had stripped him to his underwear, pushed him against a wall and shot him.
His death had been reported over the radio, yet the girls' relatives had been unable to tell them the news.
Araj and Sobhia sat in the corner talking quietly to their mother, Nadira Hazawi, 30. She was also unaware of her husband's fate.
Indira Abdullah Harq, 34, a family friend, said: "She is very ill. We cannot tell her about her husband."
The family was living on a diet of rice. The curfew imposed by the Israeli army has prevented food from reaching the camp, while all water and electricity supplies have been cut off.
As machinegun fire echoed outside, the frightened girls huddled together for comfort.
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