OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 28 April — The United Nations team to investigate the Israeli massacre in the Jenin refugee camp is expected to fly to Tel Aviv this evening, after two delays and threats by Ariel Sharon’s government to block the investigation.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to postpone the mission’s arrival until after an Israeli Cabinet meeting today to approve the probe into the massacre of hundreds of civilians.
Even before the UN mission arrives, Israeli politicians have attempted to discredit the investigation by claiming it is part of a rising tide of global anti-Semitism. Israeli public opinion agrees. Backing for the Israeli military’s actions on the West Bank has sharply increased Sharon’s approval ratings, while domestic critics of the assault on Palestinian areas are increasingly shunned.
According to the online edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz Israeli witnesses who give testimony to the UN team have been promised confidentiality by the UN so they do not risk eventual prosecution for their cooperation before Israeli or other courts.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank were bracing themselves for massive Israeli military retaliation last night after an attack on a Jewish settlement near Hebron, where two Palestinians — dressed reportedly in Israeli Army uniforms — shot dead four settlers. The shooting was carried out by the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an anonymous phonecaller told AFP. Israel has shrugged off an impatient US call to end its West Bank drive and vowed to press on with its offensive.
Israeli spokesman Arie Mekel blamed the shootings on a “pyramid of terror” headed by President Yasser Arafat and said they justified the military offensive launched on March 29. “It is obvious Israel will have to continue its fight against terrorism and take all necessary measures to this end,” Mekel said. His remarks came after US President George W. Bush, making his second such call in two days, demanded on Friday that Israel halt its incursions into Palestinian areas “now.”
In Bethlehem, meanwhile, the chief Palestinian negotiator in talks to end the 26-day-old siege at the Church of the Nativity said he had received new instructions from Yasser Arafat but dismissed speculation a deal was imminent. The Israeli Army said the two sides were set to meet this afternoon.
Talks have stalled over Israel’s refusal to accept a Palestinian proposal to evacuate all the gunmen to Gaza and the Palestinians’ rejection of an Israeli proposal that they either face life exile or a trial in Israel. In a cellular-phone call to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Anton Salman, a Catholic lawyer inside the church, denied the Palestinians posed a threat to anybody. Salman was among civilians and priests who have remained in the church, considered one of Christianity’s major sites.
In new violence around the church, Palestinian sources said an 18-year-old Palestinian inside was shot in the back and critically wounded by Israeli forces.
Israeli soldiers shot and injured seven Palestinians, one seriously, in the Rafah region in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said yesterday.
Three others were injured, including one seriously, Friday night by Israeli fire near the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
A Palestinian teenager previously in Bethlehem’s besieged church said that gunmen inside were willing to be exiled to end a 24-day standoff with Israeli troops.
Four people, including a 75-year-old woman, were injured in Rafah’s marketplace when Israeli tanks patrolling the area opened fire, the same sources said.
In Ramallah, about 150 Palestinians staging a protest outside a barricade near Arafat’s compound were sent scattering yesterday by a sustained Israeli tear gas bombardment. The marchers, chanting slogans in support of Arafat who remains besieged inside his headquarters after the army withdrawal from the rest of Ramallah, included about two dozen children, some in school uniform. Soldiers began firing tear gas cannisters as some protesters clambered over the barricade and began throwing stones. The firing continued for about 20 minutes with the range extended as the protesters retreated down the street.
In Durban, the Non-Aligned Movement’s committee on Palestine yesterday expressed support for the Palestinian people and agreed on steps members should take to stem the crisis in the Middle East, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said.
