Israeli block at refugee camp angers EU

BRUSSELS - European outrage is mounting as Israel continues to deny journalists and relief workers unfettered access to a devastated West Bank refugee camp at the centre of allegations of atrocities.

European Union External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten added his voice yesterday to calls for an international investigation into Palestinian charges that Israeli troops massacred hundreds of men, women and children in the Jenin camp.

Israel has denied the massacre allegation, but has given contradictory casualty figures and blocked journalists and aid agencies from operating freely in the camp.

The Army moved into West Bank towns and refugee camps to uproot "terrorist networks" after more than 120 Israelis were killed in Palestinian suicide bombings in a month.

The troops met armed resistance in Jenin but what happened during and after the battle is the subject of fierce dispute.

Many European officials, human rights campaigners and newspapers editorials say that if Israel had done nothing wrong, it should stop behaving as if it had something to hide.

The United States, in contrast, has called for an Israeli withdrawal, but has focused most of its pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to stop attacks on Israelis.

European criticism may have been hardened by anger at the way Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon snubbed an EU diplomatic mission to seek a ceasefire two weeks ago, barring Europe's top diplomats from meeting the besieged Arafat.

Patten said Israel must accept a United Nations probe of the alleged atrocities or face "colossal damage" to its reputation.

"It is in Israel's interest to behave like a democracy that believes in the rule of law," he told the Guardian newspaper.

"If Israel simply refuses all genuine calls for humanitarian assistance, if it resists any attempt by the international media to cover what is going on, then it is going to provide oxygen for all those who will be making more extreme demands," he said.

The human rights group Amnesty International said a delegation it sent to examine reports of "a major humanitarian and human rights disaster" had been denied entry to the Jenin camp and government hospital.

Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters sans Frontieres said that by preventing journalists from having complete access to such areas, the Israelis were "leaving the door open to rumours and disinformation".

And a spokesman for the Roman Catholic peace-promoting community Sant'Egidio in Rome said: "There is no war situation that ever justifies the prevention of relief agencies from getting in and journalists getting information out."

Some EU states, including France and Spain, voted for a UN Human Rights Commission resolution on Tuesday denouncing "mass killings" by the Israelis and calling for an investigation team to visit the West Bank.

Although Israel has sought to bar journalists from Jenin, many have found back routes into the camp and filed harrowing reports of bodies lying unburied beneath the rubble of homes demolished by Army bulldozers.

Those eyewitness accounts and television pictures have dramatised the plight of the Palestinian residents but yielded no clear proof of a massacre.

However, the Greek daily Eleftherotypia said in a front page comment: "Thousands of dead lie unburied, but Sharon boasts: only a few dozen ...

"Powell turned his face away. He refused to visit Jenin as the Palestinians had asked him."

European calls for an international probe reflect sharp differences between European and US public opinion.

The European public and media tend to see the Palestinians as victims of Israeli occupation locked in an unequal struggle for liberation. The US public and media tend to depict Israel as a victim of "terrorism", surrounded by hostile Arab states.

Since the September 11 attacks on the US, more American commentators have come to view the Palestinian uprising in the light of President George W. Bush's declared "war on terrorism" rather than as a national liberation movement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross called yesterday for international search and rescue teams to be sent to Jenin.

Spokesman Vincent Lusser said the teams were needed to remove dead bodies known to be under bulldozed buildings and hunt for possible survivors after some camp residents reported hearing cries.

He said Israel had made no response yet.

"These teams are usually pretty quick to move and they could be there in a day or so," he said.

Lusser said the teams would also need to include experts in de-mining as many of the buildings still standing are believed to be booby-trapped.

- REUTERS

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