Time running out for Jenin probe

NEW YORK - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan may cancel his investigation of Israel's assault on the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp, but Washington is hoping for a compromise.

Annan said he would decide within 24 hours, after seeking advice from UN Security Council members, but he was "inclined to disband" the 20-member team waiting in Geneva.

Israel's Cabinet again failed to approve the UN team, after agreeing two weeks ago to the mission looking into its siege of the West Bank camp where Palestinians say a massacre occurred. Israel denies it.

"There are lots of accusations, lots of rumours," Annan said.

"We don't know what is true and what is not, and I really felt it was in everyone's interest that we clarify this issue as quickly as possible."

But Annan said he could not keep the team, headed by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, waiting in Geneva much longer.

Israel has raised a series of objections on the scope and mandate of the team, which Annan said he could not accommodate despite talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

"I know their concern; I know the anxiety; I know the situation in the country," he said.

"But of course we also have to allow the team to do a credible and a competent job."

Peres said Israel was concerned that the panel's report could form the basis for war crimes prosecutions against Israeli soldiers.

He had presented Annan with six demands, one of which insisted that the UN report present no conclusions.

Arab nations, led by Syria and Tunisia, immediately introduced a Security Council resolution that is opposed by Washington and others.

The document demands that Israeli co-operates with the UN mission and threatens undefined measures if it refuses.

"It is obvious from the objections raised by Israel that it would like to write the UN commission's report itself," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said from Ramallah.

Nevertheless, the United States was in favour of keeping the mission alive. "They want to breathe life into a corpse," said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Washington, a senior State Department official said "we are still working on seeing if they can work out some arrangements", and stressed that Annan had not made a final decision.

But Annan's comments came at the end of a day of strong suggestions that the mission was all but over. At best, diplomats said Annan would agree to resume talks with Israeli officials but in the interim would disband the team.

Israel says suicide bombers came from the now devastated Jenin camp, which its troops entered on April 3.

Over the next week Israel lost 23 soldiers and says that 50 Palestinians, mostly fighters, were killed.

But Palestinians contend that hundreds of bodies could be buried in rubble left by Israeli bulldozers.

A US medical rights group has released a preliminary assessment of Palestinian casualties at Jenin, saying they did not point to a massacre but showed an urgent need for an inquiry and protection of forensic evidence at the site.

"There is a strong basis to believe there were severe delays in enabling wounded people to reach a medical facility," the Physicians for Human Rights added in a report that says at least 45 Palestinian died and 201 were injured.

It based its data on a review of records at a hospital it said processed more than 90 per cent of nearby casualties, but cautioned that the death toll was probably higher as about two bodies were being pulled a day from the debris when the team stopped work.

The medical team said records showed 15 of those killed were shot, mostly in the head, 19 died of unknown injuries, five were crushed, three were killed by blunt force to the head, one person was crushed by a tank and another died of smoke inhalation.

Thirty people were killed in the refugee camp itself, five in the nearby town and 10 in villages within a 6km radius.



In other developments yesterday:

* In Bethlehem, 26 people left the Church of the Nativity - the largest group to leave since the standoff began. But many more people, including 30 wanted militants, remained inside.

* Israel withdrew from Palestinian-ruled areas in the West Bank city of Hebron after arresting 150 Palestinians suspected of "terror activities", including 52 on its wanted list, and confiscated explosives, bombs and weapons caches.

* Three Palestinians, including a 2-year-old girl, were killed in fresh clashes in Gaza, Palestinian sources said.

The toddler and one man were killed by Israeli tank fire and the second man died during a separate gun battle with Israeli troops.

An Israeli military source said a tank had fired a shell at three militants who had set off a roadside bomb.

- REUTERS

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