http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1944000/1944434.stm
Monday, 22 April, 2002, 17:07 GMT 18:07 UK
UN names Jenin inquiry team

Palestinians say there are bodies under the rubble
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed
Finland's former President Martti Ahtisaari head of a
team to probe events at the refugee camp in Jenin,
where Palestinians say the Israeli army "massacred"
civilians.

The commission will investigate claims of human rights
abuses during Israel's eight-day incursion into the
camp.

Palestinians say hundreds of
civilians died, but Israel
insists the number of dead
was fewer than 100, and that
most of them were gunmen.

Criticism of Israel has also
come the Red Cross and the
UN relief agency for
Palestinian refugees
(UNRWA) which on Monday
accused it of violating
international humanitarian
laws during its operation in the Jenin camp.

The UN commission also includes Sadako Ogata of
Japan, former head of the UN refugee agency, and
Cornelio Sammaruga, the Swiss former head of the
International Red Cross.

Retired US General William Nash, a former UN regional
administrator in Kosovo, will be military adviser to the
team, and Peter Fitzgerald of Ireland, a former UN
civilian police officer, will be police adviser.

Conditions imposed

Mr Annan said: "The team will start its work without
delay. It will first assemble in Europe this week and
then travel to the region as soon as possible.

"I expect the government of Israel and the Palestinian
Authority to co-operate fully with the team and to
provide full and complete access to all sides, sources of
information and individuals that the team will consider
necessary."

The decision to send a commission was agreed by the
UN Security Council.

The US agreed to it on the condition that the team
would report to Mr Annan and not to the Security
Council, which Israel regards as biased against it.

There was controversy
between Israel and New
York over who should sit
on the commission.

Israel said it had nothing
to hide in Jenin, but had
warned it would not accept
a commission which
included UN regional
co-ordinator Terje
Roed-Larsen, UNRWA head
Peter Hansen or the UN's
human rights chief Mary
Robinson.

Israel accuses the three
officials of pro-Palestinian
bias.

'War crimes' inquiry

Amnesty International, the human rights organisation,
is calling for full international war crimes inquiry,
following its three-day survey of Jenin camp.

Hospital officials say that fewer than 50 bodies have
been recovered, but the Palestinians say hundreds of
people have been killed and may be buried under
houses bulldozed by the Israeli army.

Israel says 23 of its soldiers were killed in the refugee
camp, including 13 in a single ambush, as its troops
rooted out Palestinian militants.

"The claim that only
fighters were killed is
simply not true - a mixture
of bodies were clearly
civilians and combatants,"
said Derrick Pounder,
forensics expert from
Dundee University in
Scotland.

Mr Pounder said he had
examined five of 21
bodies, including three
women, which were
uncovered during his three
days in Jenin.

He said at least two bodies
appeared to be Palestinian
fighters, but of the other three, one 52-year-old man
was wearing sandals and appeared to be a civilian, as
did another 38-year-old man dressed in ordinary
clothing

"What was striking was what was absent. It was
inconceivable that there were not large numbers of
seriously injured," he said, concluding that they must
have been left to bleed to death.

"There must be many more (dead) because we could
smell the corpses," Mr Pounder said.