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Left-wing Knesset members defy roadblocks to view Jenin damageWednesday 24 Apr 2002
author: Jalal Bana
summary
A group of 10 Israeli leftists visited the Jenin refugee camp yesterday to review what they termed the "Israeli government's war crimes." The visit was at the initiative of Hadash MKs Issam Makhoul and Tamar Gozansky.
Hadash MKs defy roadblocks to view Jenin damage
By Jalal Bana
JENIN - A group of 10 Israeli leftists visited the Jenin refugee camp yesterday to review what they termed the "Israeli government's war crimes." The visit was at the initiative of Hadash MKs Issam Makhoul and Tamar Gozansky.
Makhoul and Gozansky, who organized the visit, originally tried to pass through an Israel Defense Forces roadblock to enter Jenin, only to be told that they could not enter a closed military area. Determined to get to the camp, the two MKs and the accompanying group bypassed the checkpoint, climbed over a hill and walked several kilometers. Palestinian Authority delegates met them at a rendezvous point, and transported the group to the refugee camp.
Walls in the city of Jenin are covered with pictures of people killed during the fighting in the camp and of others who carried out terror attacks in Israel. Anti-Israel graffiti messages, reminiscent of the first intifada, are directed primarily against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
In Jenin (and elsewhere in PA territories), links are drawn between the recent IDF action in the refugee camp, the Sabra and Chatila massacre, and Ariel Sharon.
Residents in the camp hurl harsh accusations regarding the behavior of IDF soldiers. Some claim soldiers looted stores and homes.
Yesterday morning residents of the camp continued to sift through the rubble, searching for bodies of missing people. Many camp residents who fled before the IDF incursion have now returned to begin the search for missing loved ones.
Using whatever primitive implements are available to dig through the wreckage, residents yesterday located the bodies of three teenagers, and also of a 10-year-old girl. These bodies have yet to be identified.
Jenin Mayor Walid Abu Mowais reports that 151 city residents have been declared missing. Mowais says he has received reports from camp residents who witnessed "Israeli soldiers collecting bodies and putting them on trucks, which left the refugee camp."
The 15,000 or so residents of the Jenin camp have tried to return to their normal routines, following the IDF withdrawal. Yet many are finding it difficult to overcome feelings of rage or grief. "This is what Sharon has done to us," said one resident, pointing at mounds of debris in a destroyed area of the camp. Another resident, Mufid Abu Frej, spent yesterday searching for missing members of his immediate family - two married brothers and their families, and his father.