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{{Short description|Battle of the Second Intifada}}
{{Articleissues
{{Distinguish|Battle of Jenin (1948)}}
| citecheck = September 2007
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
| disputed = August 2007
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2013}}
| POV = August 2007
{{Infobox military conflict
| weasel = September 2007}}
| conflict = Battle of Jenin

| partof = ] and the ]
{{Infobox Military Conflict
| image = ג'נין חומת מגן.jpg
|conflict=Battle of Jenin
| caption = Aerial photograph of the battle area in Jenin, taken two days after the battle ended
|partof=the ], ]
| date = April 1–11, 2002 (Israeli troop withdrawal began April 18)
|image=]
| place = ], ] ]
|caption=IDF ]L and D9N ]s, instrumental in changing the style of combat and the outcome of the battle.
| result = Israeli victory<ref name=Time/><ref name=tactics>{{cite journal |title=Tactics, The Essential Debate: Combined Arms and the Close Battle in Complex Terrain |journal=Australian Army Journal |volume=1 |issue=2 |author=Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen |date=December 2003 |url=http://bingo.clarus.com.au/public/static/AAJ_December_03.pdf#page=64 |access-date=July 9, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912073825/http://bingo.clarus.com.au/public/static/AAJ_December_03.pdf#page=64 |archive-date=September 12, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|date=April ]
| combatant1 = {{flag|Israel}}
|place=], ]
* {{flagicon|Israel|tsahal}} ]
|casus=] and earlier bombings launched from Jenin
| combatant2 = {{flagicon|Palestinian Authority}} ]
|combatant1={{flagcountry|Israel}} ]
* ]
|combatant2=] ] (], ])<br>] ]<br><!-- Deleted image removed: ] -->]
* ]
|commander1=] <ref name=Time> ('']''), Also </ref>
* ]
|commander2=]†
{{flagicon|Hamas}} ]<br>{{flagicon|Palestinian Islamic Jihad}} ]<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Jihad.svg}} Independent Palestinian mujahid factions
|strength1=1,000
| commander1 = Yehuda Yedidya<br>Eyal Shlein<br>Ofek Buchris
|strength2=200-250
| commander2 = Hazem Qabha {{KIA}}<br>]<br>] {{KIA}}
|casualties1=23 soldiers killed
| strength1 = 1 reserve infantry brigade<br>2 regular infantry battalions<br>Commando teams<ref name="harel257-258" /><br>12 ] armored bulldozers
|casualties2=52 killed (38 armed men, 14 civilians according to ]; at least 30 militants, at least 22 civilians according to ])<br>685 persons arrested (mostly released)
| strength2 = Some 200 – several hundreds<ref name="harel257-258" /><ref name=UNreport/>
| casualties1 = 23 dead<br>52 wounded<ref name="harel257-258" />
| casualties2 = 52 dead (at least 27 militants and 22 civilians) per ]<ref name="hrwreport">{{Cite journal | volume = 14, No. 3 (E) | issue = May 2002 | title = Jenin: IDF Military Operations | journal = Human Rights Watch | access-date = September 21, 2008 | url = http://hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/index.htm#TopOfPage | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080914212523/http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/index.htm| archive-date= September 14, 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref><br>53 dead (48 militants<ref>Every Palestinian male between 15 and 55 was counted as a militant. See {{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/143/2002/en/|title=Israel and the Occupied Territories Shielded from Scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus|publisher=] |access-date=October 22, 2015}}{{Rp|P.12}}</ref> and 5 civilians) per the ]
| casualties3 = Dozens of houses destroyed according to the ]<ref name="harel257-258" /><br />according to ] at least 140 buildings completely destroyed, severe damage caused 200 additional buildings rendered uninhabitable or unsafe.<ref name="hrwreport"/>
| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Second Intifada}}
}} }}
The '''Battle of Jenin''', took place in the ] ] in the ] ] on April 1–11, 2002. The Israeli military invaded the camp, and other areas under the administration of the ], during the ], as part of ].
{{Campaignbox Al aqsa}}

The '''Battle of Jenin''' ({{lang-ar|مجزرة جنين}} '''Jenin Massacre''') ; ({{lang-he|הקרב בג'נין 2002}} '''Battle in Jenin 2002''') took place between the 3rd and 11th of April ] in ]'s ] ] as part of ] during the ].

After a ] by ] on ]i civilians, Israel deployed ] (IDF) to conduct what it considered a large-scale ] offensive, called 'Operation Defensive Shield'.<ref name="PMnDM"></ref>


Israeli forces employed infantry, commando forces, and assault helicopters. ] had prepared for a fight, ] locations throughout the camp, and after an Israeli column walked into an ], the army began to rely more heavily on the use of ]s. On April 11, Palestinian militants began to surrender. Israeli troops began withdrawing from the camp on April 18.
As part of the operation, Israel targeted Jenin's refugee camp, referred to as "the ]' capital" by Palestinians<ref name="FatahMar"> (according to ])</ref><ref name="BBCmartyrs"></ref><ref name=Time/> after it charged that the city had "served as a launch site for numerous terrorist attacks against both Israeli civilians and Israeli towns and villages in the area",<ref></ref> including the dispatch of 28 suicide bombers since the start of the Second Intifada.<ref name="BBCmartyrs"/>


Despite reports of a widespread massacre numbering hundreds of casualties by some Palestinian officials, subsequent investigations found no evidence to substantiate it, and official totals from Palestinian and Israeli sources confirmed between 52 and 54 ], including civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers as having been killed in the fighting.<ref name=NewsweekJan2009>{{cite web|last=Dickey|first=Christopher|title=The Crying Game|url=http://www.newsweek.com/2009/01/14/the-crying-game.html|work=Newsweek|date=January 14, 2009 }} - "histrionic claims by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat that 1,000 civilians had been killed. (In fact, about 50 Palestinians had fought and died in a ferocious battle that also cost the lives of 23 Israeli soldiers.)"</ref><ref name=HaaretzFeb2008>{{cite news|last=Burston|first=Bradley|title=Sderot as Stalingrad, Hamas as blind Samson|url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/sderot-as-stalingrad-hamas-as-blind-samson-1.239034|work=Haaretz}} - "On April 7, senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat suggested to CNN that some 500 Palestinians had been killed in the camp. Five days later, when the fighting stopped, PA Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman told UPI that the number was in the thousands, hinting, along with other Palestinian figures, that Israel had snatched bodies, buried Palestinians in mass graves and under the rubble of ruined buildings, and otherwise conducted on a scale compatible with genocide."<br> - "A subsequent UN investigation determined that 52 Palestinians had been killed in the fighting, most of them armed members of Palestinian militias and militant groups. A total of 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting."</ref><ref name=AFPJTimesJul2011>{{cite web|last=Krauss|first=Joseph|title=Weary West Bank fighters watch Gaza assault from afar|url=http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13544|agency=AFP|work=The Jordan Times}} - "Fifty-four Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the melee."</ref> Israel did not allow emergency workers into the camp after the battle with Palestinian militants had ended, drawing condemnation from a UN envoy.<ref name="jenincamp"/> The battle led to widespread destruction of the camp, as at least 140 buildings were completely destroyed, and severe damage was caused to 200 additional buildings rendered uninhabitable or unsafe.
The Israeli force consisted of ] and ], supported by ]. Towards the end of operations ]s were used heavily <ref name="azure"></ref><ref name="Crucible"></ref><ref> (pg. 16) by Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, ]</ref> which caused extensive damage and contributed to the destruction of around 10% of the camp area.<ref name="azure"/><ref></ref><ref name="WashTimes0501"/>


== Naming ==
] described the Israeli actions as indiscriminate and alleged that a ] took place. International media initially reported the fighting as the '''Jenin Massacre''' but subsequent investigations found no evidence of one, although major human rights organizations maintained that there was strong '']'' evidence of IDF ]. The Palestinian death toll was estimated at at least 52 (including at least 22 civilians), while 23 Israeli soldiers were killed.<ref name=UNEU></ref>
According to Palestinian writer Ramzy Baroud, the event is "known by many as the Jenin massacre".<ref>{{cite book |author=Turk, M. A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jcAUf63mh5YC |title=Searching Jenin: eyewitness accounts of the Israeli invasion, 2002 |date=2003 |publisher=Cune Press |isbn=9781885942340 |series=Bridge between the cultures |pages=21}}</ref>


==Background== ==Background==
The ] ] was established in 1953 within Jenin's municipal boundaries on land that the ] (UNRWA) leased from the government of ], who at the time ] until ]. Covering an area of 0.423 square kilometers, in 2002, it was home to 13,055 ] registered ].<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine |last=Rees |first=Matt |title=Inside the Battle of Jenin : Untangling Jenin's Tale |magazine=Time |access-date=November 25, 2011|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002406,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080406171459/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002406,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 6, 2008 |date=May 13, 2002}}</ref><ref name=UNRWA>{{cite web|title=Jenin Refugee Camp|publisher=]|url=https://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/jenin.html|access-date=August 31, 2009}}</ref> Most of the camp's residents originally hail from the ] and region of ], and many maintain close ties with their relatives inside the ].<ref name=UNRWA /> Other camp residents include Palestinians from ] and ] who moved into the area in the late 1970s, and those who came from ] after the establishment of the ] (PA) with the signing of the ] in 1993.
:''For wider scope background regarding ] ] events from March until the first week in May 2002, see: ]''.


Camp militants repelled attempts by PA seniors to exercise authority in the camp. In a February 2002 show of force, residents burned seven vehicles that were sent by the governor of Jenin and opened fire on the PA men. Ata Abu Rumeileh was designated the chief security officer of the camp by its residents. He oversaw access to the entrances to the camp, instituted roadblocks, investigated "suspicious characters" and kept unwanted strangers away.<ref name="harel254" />
=== The refugee camp of Jenin ===
]'' and the ''Battle of Jenin''.]]
The camp of Jenin, adjoining the south-west outskirts of the Jenin city, is the second largest ] refugee camp in the West Bank. It existed since 1953 and housed 13,055 in an area of 548 squared meters, forming a neighborhood of densely packed buildings alongside Jenin-proper and not far from the ]. It had come under Palestinian civil and security control with the rest of the city as part of the ] in 1995, which dictated a prevention of attacks on Israelis.


Known to Palestinians as "the ]' capital", the camp's militants, some 200 armed men, included members of ], ], ] (PIJ) and ].<ref name=Time /><ref name="BBCmartyrs" /><ref name="Bernanp434">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/yearbookofunited0000unit |title=Yearbook of the United Nations: 2002 |publisher=United Nations Publications |year=2004 |isbn=978-92-1-100904-0 |editor-last=Gordon |editor-first=Kathryn |volume=56 |location=New York |pages=434{{subst:en dash}}435 |issn=0082-8521 |oclc=854918701 |access-date=September 9, 2009}}</ref> By Israel's count, at least 28 ] were dispatched from the Jenin camp from 2000 to 2003 during the ].<ref name="BBCmartyrs">{{cite news|last=Lee|first=Ken|title=Jenin rises from the dirt|work=BBC|access-date=September 21, 2008|date=June 24, 2003|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3015814.stm}}</ref> One of the key planners for several of the attacks was ], who worked in a record store while also heading the local PIJ cell.<ref name="Time" /> Israeli army weekly '']'' attributes at least 31 militant attacks, totaling 124 victims, to Jenin during the same period, more than any other city in the West Bank.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=]|issue= 3003|pages=31–32|title=BeGeder Hatzlaha (Hebrew title)|author1=Kiron, Omri |author2=Al-Peleg, Daniel |date=September 4, 2009|language=he}}</ref>
=== Increase in militancy and terrorism ===


Prior to the undertaking of the Israeli operation the ] attributed 23 suicide bombings and 6 attempted bombings against civilians in Israel to Palestinians from Jenin.<ref name="mfa2">{{cite web|title=Suicide Bombers from Jenin |publisher=Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs |access-date=October 18, 2008 |date=July 2, 2002 |url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/7/Suicide%20Bombers%20from%20Jenin |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705043647/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/7/Suicide%20Bombers%20from%20Jenin |archive-date=July 5, 2008 }}</ref> Major attacks and suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinian militant groups from Jenin included the ], a Palestinian suicide bombing of an ]-owned restaurant in ]<ref>{{cite news | last = Bennet | first = James | title = MIDEAST TURMOIL: THE VIOLENCE; Bomber Strikes Jews and Arabs At Rare Refuge | work=] | date = 2002-04-01 | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F03E0DD153AF932A35757C0A9649C8B63 | access-date = 2008-07-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077927.html |title=Israeli man succumbs to wounds sustained in 2002 Hamas suicide bombing - Haaretz - Israel News |access-date=2009-04-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415134709/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077927.html |archive-date=2009-04-15 }}</ref> which has been called a massacre<ref name=meotti>{{cite book|last= Meotti|first=Giulio |title=A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q0OpIxcBBJwC&q=Matza+restaurant+massacre|year=2003|publisher=Encounter Books|page=47|isbn=978-1594034770}}</ref> and resulted in the deaths of 16 Israeli civilians, and over 40 more civilians being injured.
From the beginning of March until the first week in May 2002, there were approximately 16 bombings in Israel, mostly suicide attacks, in which more than 100 Israelis were killed and scores wounded. During the same period the ] (IDF) led two waves of incursions into Palestinian towns and villages in the ]. The first wave, from ]<ref>{{cite video
|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1845000/video/_1845544_mideast15_plett_vi.ram
|title=Israel strikes inside refugee camps
|people=Blett, Barbara (Reporter)
|date=2002-02-28
|format=]
|publisher=BBC
|accessdate=2007-09-09}}</ref> through ], had caused significant loss of life.<ref name=UN/>


==Prelude==
After 18 Israelis were killed in two separate Palestinian attacks on ] and ], and a ] killed 30 and injured 140 on ],<ref name=UN> </ref> Israeli PM ] said ''No sovereign nation would tolerate such a sequence of events.'' while DM Ben-Eliezer stated ''a massacre of this nature is something that no nation can live with.''<ref name="PMnDM"/> and within 24 hours Israel called up 30,000 ] and launched ] in ] and ], entering ] and ] a day later.<ref name=Time/>
Days prior, a ] in Netanya resulted in at least 30 casualties and 140 wounded.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |date=2022-04-16 |title=In Jenin refugee camp, anger is directed at both Israel and Palestinian Authority |url=https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2022/04/16/in-jenin-refugee-camp-anger-is-directed-at-both-israel-and-palestinian-authority/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211073024/https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2022/04/16/in-jenin-refugee-camp-anger-is-directed-at-both-israel-and-palestinian-authority/ |archive-date=2023-02-11 |access-date=2023-02-11 |website=The National |language=en |agency=Associated Press}}</ref> Israel's ] began on March 29 with an incursion into Ramallah, followed by Tulkarem and ] on April 1, ] on April 2, and Jenin and Nablus on April 3.<ref name=UNreport /> By this date, six Palestinian cities and their surrounding towns, villages, and refugee camps, had been occupied by the IDF.<ref name=Bernanp434 /><ref>Taylor & Francis Group (2004) ''Europa World Year Book 2: Kazakhstan-Zimbabwe'' Published by Taylor & Francis, {{ISBN|1-85743-255-X}} p 3314</ref>


Limited Israeli forces had entered the camp along a single route twice in the previous month; they encountered heavy resistance and quickly withdrew. Unlike other camps, the organizations in Jenin had a joint commander: Hazem Ahmad Rayhan Qabha, known as "Abu Jandal," an officer in the ] who had fought in ], served in the ], and who had been involved in several encounters with the IDF. He set up a war room and divided the camp into fifteen sub-sectors, deploying about twenty armed men in each.<ref name="harel254-255">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), pp. 254–255</ref> During the battle, he began calling himself "The Martyr Abu Jandal".<ref name="memri">{{cite web |volume=90 |issue=April 23, 2002 |title=The Palestinian Account of the Battle of Jenin |publisher=MEMRI |access-date=September 19, 2008 |url=http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA9002 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080909220706/http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA9002|archive-date= September 9, 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>
According to Israeli and Palestinian observers who gave information to the UN, 200 armed men from the ], ], ], and ] had been using the camp as a base, known as "the ]' capital",<ref name="FatahMar"/><ref name="BBCmartyrs"/><ref name=Time/> and of the 100 ] who had launched attacks since the ] began in October 2000, 23<ref></ref> or 28<ref name=UN/><ref name=Time/> attacks had been launched from there. On of the key planners of attacks was ], ] commander of the camp.<ref name=Time/>


After an IDF action in Ramallah in March{{When|date=August 2010}} resulted in television broadcast footage that was considered unflattering, the IDF high command decided not to allow reporters to join the forces.<ref name="harel259" /> Like other cities targeted in Defensive Shield, Jenin was declared a "closed military zone" and placed under ] before the entrance of Israeli troops, remaining sealed off throughout the invasion.<ref name="Bernanp434" /><ref name="Selbyp1">Selby, 2003, .</ref> Water and electricity supplies to the city were also cut off and remained unavailable to residents throughout.<ref name="BBCexpert" />
Limited Israeli forces had entered the camp along a single route twice in the previous month; they had encountered heavy resistance and quickly departed. The command decided to this time send in three thrusts comprised mainly of the reservist ] from the town of Jenin to the north, as well as a company of the ] Brigade from the southeast and Battalion 51 of the ] from the southwest. The force of 1,000 troops also included elements of the ] and ] special forces, the ], and ] with ] for neutralising the ]s that would line the alleys of the camp according to ]. Anticipating the heaviest resistance in ], IDF commanders sent two regular infantry brigades there, assuming they could take over the Jenin camp in 48-72 hours with just the one reservist brigade, an assessment which turned out to be overly optimistic. The force's entry was delayed until ] due to rain.<ref name=Time/>


=== Booby-trapping of homes and buildings ===
Since the previous Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian militants had prepared by ]ping both the town and camp's streets in a bid to trap the Israeli soldiers,<ref name=Ahram></ref> some of them as large as 113 ] (250 ]). Matt Rees of ''Time'' magazine compared this weight to the 25 pounds of a typical suicide bomber's charge. They had also cut tunnels between homes to maintain mobility without exposing themselves to the street.<ref name=Time/>
Since the previous Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian militants had prepared by ]ping both the town and camp's streets in a bid to trap Israeli soldiers.<ref name="Ahram">{{cite news |last=Cook |first=Jonathan |title=The 'engineer' |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/582/6inv2.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907083010/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/582/6inv2.htm |archive-date=September 7, 2008 |access-date=September 22, 2008 |work=Al-Ahram |issue=582 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Following his surrender to Israeli forces, Thabet Mardawi, an Islamic Jihad fighter, said that Palestinian fighters had spread "between 1000 and 2000 bombs and booby traps" throughout the camp, some big ones for tanks (weighing as much as 113 ]), most others the size of water bottles.<ref name="Time" /><ref name="CNNMardawi" /> "Omar the Engineer", a Palestinian bombmaker, said that some 50 homes were booby trapped: "We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them."<ref name="Ahram" /> More powerful bombs with remote detonators were placed inside trash bins in the street and inside the cars of wanted men. Omar said that everyone in the camp, including children, knew where the explosives were located, and noted that this constituted a major weakness to their defenses, since during the Israeli incursion, the wires to more than a third of the bombs were cut by soldiers guided by Palestinian collaborators.<ref name="Ahram" />


=== Evacuation orders and start of fighting ===
== The battle ==
According to ], before the fighting started, the IDF used loudspeakers broadcasting in Arabic to urge the locals to evacuate the camp, and he estimates that some 11,000 left.<ref name=karsh233>Karsh (2004), p. 233</ref> Stephanie Gutmann also said that the IDF used bullhorns and announcements in Arabic to inform the residents of the invasion, and that the troops massed outside the camp for a day because of rain. She estimated that 1,200 remained in the camp, but that it was impossible to tell how many of them were fighters.<ref name="gutmann163-164">Gutmann (2005), pp. 163–164</ref> After the battle, Israeli intelligence estimated that half the population of noncombatants had left before the invasion, and 90% had done so by the third day, leaving around 1,300 people.<ref name="Time" /> Others estimated that 4,000 people had remained in the camp.<ref name=Vidalp169>Gresh and Vidal, 2004 .</ref> Some camp residents reported hearing the Israeli calls to evacuate, while others said they did not. Many thousands did leave the camp, with women and children usually permitted to move into the villages in the surrounding hills or the neighbouring city. However, the men who left were almost all temporarily detained. Instructed by Israeli soldiers to strip before they were taken away, journalists who entered Jenin following the invasion remarked that heaps of discarded clothing in the ruined streets showed where they were taken into custody.<ref name=Ferry>{{cite web|title=Jenin ground zero: Exactly what happened in the devastated Jenin refugee camp remains unknown. But for its residents, "There is no future left."|author=Ferry Biedermann|url=http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/04/19/earthquake/index.html|date=April 19, 2002|access-date=February 2, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307134010/http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/04/19/earthquake/index.html|archive-date=March 7, 2008|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
Israeli forces entered on 2 April, and had secured the town of Jenin by the second day. Israeli intelligence estimated that half the population of noncombatants had left before they arrived, and 90% had done so by the third day, leaving around 1,300 people.<ref name=Time/> The EU's contribution to the UN report said ''"at least 4,000 remained inside and did not evacuate the camp."''<ref name=UN/>


As the fighting started, Ali Safouri, a commander of the Islamic Jihad's ] in the camp, said: "We have prepared unexpected surprises for the enemy. We are determined to pay him back double, and teach him a lesson he will not forget. ... We will attack him on the home front, in ], in ], and in ], everywhere. We welcome them, and we have prepared a special graveyard in the Jenin camp for them. We swore on the martyrs that we would place a curfew on the ] cities and avenge every drop of blood spilled upon our sacred land. We call on the soldiers of ] to refuse his orders, because entering the camp... the capital of the martyrs' , will, Allah willing, be the last thing they do in their lives".<ref name="memri" />
Palestinian militants had expected an air strike since their security forces' barracks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank had been repeatedly bombed by an Israeli military that didn't want to risk the casualties of ].<ref name=Time/> However in Jenin, the IDF chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft in order to minimize civilian losses,<ref name=UN/><!--- Commented out due to link not working. If link found, please replace---will put in the UN REPORT on Jenin as it states same---> even with the risk of increased losses to ],<ref name=CNNMardawi></ref> although there was limited use of ]s.<ref name=UN/><ref name=Time/>


The Israeli command sent in three thrusts consisting mainly of the reservist 5th Infantry Brigade from the town of Jenin to the north, as well as a company of the ] from the southeast and Battalion&nbsp;51 of the ] from the southwest. The force of 1,000 troops also included ] and ] special forces, the ], and ] with ] for neutralizing the ] that would line the alleys of the camp according to ]. The 5th Infantry Brigade did not have any experience in ] and did not have a commander when Operation Defensive Shield started, since the last commander's service ended a few days earlier. His substitute was a reserve officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yehuda Yedidya, who got his rank after the operation began. His soldiers were not trained for ].<ref name="harel253-254">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), pp. 253–254</ref> Anticipating the heaviest resistance in ], IDF commanders sent two regular infantry brigades there, assuming they could take over the Jenin camp in 48–72 hours with just the one reservist brigade. The force's entry was delayed until April 2 due to rain and delays with transporting equipment.<ref name="Time" />
A leader of Fatah gunmen in the camp told '']'' that it was only when his forces saw the Israelis advancing on foot that they decided to stay and fight.<ref name=Time/> ] militant Tabaat (or Thabet) Mardawi enthusiastically told ] from his prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, "It was like hunting ... like being given a prize... The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed... I've been waiting for a moment like that for years." Mardawi told CNN that Palestinian fighters had spread "between 1000 and 2000 bombs and ]s" throughout the camp.<ref name=CNNMardawi/>


==Battle==
An IDF ] ] driving along a 1.2 km stretch of the main street to clear booby traps set off 124 explosions.<ref name=Time/>
]
]
Israeli forces entered Jenin on April 2. On the first day, reserve company commander Major Moshe Gerstner was killed in a PIJ sector. This caused a further delay.<ref name="harel254">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 254</ref> By April 3, the city was secured, but the fighting in the camp was just beginning.<ref name="Time" /> Israeli sources say that the IDF incursion into the camp relied primarily on infantry to minimize civilian casualties, but interviews with eyewitnesses suggest that tanks and helicopters were also used in the first two days.<ref name=UNreport>{{cite web|url=https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/FD7BDE7666E04F5C85256C08004E63ED|title=Report of the Secretary-General prepared pursuant to General Assembly resolution ES-10/10 (Report on Jenin)|publisher=United Nations|access-date=September 3, 2009| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090911143157/http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/| archive-date=September 11, 2009 | url-status=live}}</ref> Captured Palestinian fighters subsequently told their interrogators that they had anticipated greater use of Israeli air power, not expecting the Israelis to risk heavier casualties in house-to-house fighting. Ata Abu Roumileh, a Fatah leader in the camp, later said that it was only when his forces saw the Israelis advancing on foot that they decided to stay and fight.<ref name="Time" /> Thabet Mardawi recalled that "I couldn't believe it when I saw the soldiers. The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed.<ref name="CNNMardawi" />
]
To reach the camp, a ] ] drove along a three-quarter-mile stretch of the main street to clear it of booby traps.<ref name="Time" /> An ] officer logged 124 separate explosions set off by the bulldozer.<ref name=Time /> ]
On the third day, the Palestinians were still dug in, defying Israeli expectations, and by then seven Israeli soldiers had been killed.<ref name="Time" /> Mardawi later testified to having killed two of them from close range, using an M-16.<ref name="harel255" /> As the IDF advanced, the Palestinians fell back to the heavily defended camp center – the Hawashin district. ] helicopters were used to strike Palestinian positions on rooftops using wire-guided missiles, and about a dozen armored D-9 bulldozers were deployed, widening alleys, clearing paths for tanks, and detonating booby traps.<ref name="Time" /><ref name=UNreport /> Palestinians said that Israeli troops rode atop the bulldozers and fired rocket propelled grenades.<ref name="Time" />
]
On April 6, ] and two other militants went into a house so as to get close enough to a tank or armored D-9 bulldozer to plant a bomb. Tawalbe and another militant were killed during the action. A British military expert working in the camp for ] reported that a D9 driver saw him, and subsequently rammed a wall down onto him and one of his fighters.<ref name="Time" /> The Islamic Jihad website announced that Tawalbe had died when he blew up in his booby-trapped home on the Israeli soldiers inside it, and that he "had thwarted all attempts by the occupation to evacuate the camp residents to make it easier for the Israelis to destroy on the heads of the fighters."<ref name="memri" /> On that same day, IDF attack helicopters reportedly increased their missile attacks, which slowed but did not cease the next day.


IDF chief of staff (]) ] urged the officers to speed things up. They asked for twenty-four more hours. Mofaz told reporters that the fighting would be complete by the end of the week, April 6. In some of the sectors, the forces were advancing at a rate of fifty meters a day.<ref name="harel255">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 255</ref> Israeli intelligence assumed that the vast majority of the camp's residents were still in it. Most commanders argued that this obligated a careful advance for fear of striking civilians, and warned that using excessive force would cost the lives of hundreds of Palestinians. Lieutenant Colonel Ofek Buchris, commander of the 51st Battalion, was left in a minority opinion, saying "We're being humiliated here for four days now". When Mofaz instructed the officers to be more aggressive and fire five antitank missiles at every house before entering, one of them contemplated disobedience.<ref name="harel255" /> Meanwhile, when asked how long he thought his forces could last given the superiority of the Israeli forces, Abu Jandal said: "No. That's not true. We have the weapon of surprise. We have the weapon of honor. We have the divine weapon, the weapon of Allah who stands at our side. We have weapons that are better than theirs. I am the one with the truth, and I put my faith in Allah, while they put their faith in a tank".<ref name="memri" />
By the third day, despite previous Israeli assessments, the Palestinians were still dug in, and seven Israeli soldiers had been killed. As the IDF advanced, the Palestinians fell back to the heavily defended camp centre - the Hawashin district.<ref name=Time/> The Israelis began to call in ] helicopters to hit rooftop positions along with Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers to detonate the booby traps and clear a path for tanks.<ref name=Time/>


Buchris continued to employ the tactics of softening up enemy resistance with antitank fire and extensive use of bulldozers, developing a method to expose IDF soldiers to less risk: first, a bulldozer would ram the corner of a house, opening a hole, and then an ] troop carrier would arrive to disembark troops into the house, where they would clear it of any militants found inside.<ref name="harel255" /> Buchris' battalion was advancing faster than the reserve forces, creating a bridgehead within the camp that attracted most of the Palestinian fire. During the first week of fighting, the battalion suffered five casualties. On April 8, the Golani Brigade's commander, Colonel ], arrived from Nablus. Having crawled with Buchris to the front line, he warned that the fighting style must be changed completely – call in more troops and perhaps take the command out of the reserve brigade's hand. By evening, division commander Brigadier General Eyal Shlein told his men that the mission must be accomplished by 6:00 PM on April 9.<ref name="harel256">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 256</ref> Buchris himself was later badly wounded.<ref name="citation">{{cite news |title=Citation to Golani battalion commander badly wounded in Defensive Shield |work=nrg |access-date=September 22, 2008 |date=July 8, 2002 |url=http://www.nrg.co.il/online/archive/ART/316/734.html|language=he}}</ref>
On the seventh day, ], 13 Israeli soldiers were killed when Palestinian fighters used civilians to lure an Israeli patrol into a booby-trapped ], and then opened fire on those retrieving wounded.<ref name=Ahram/> When another soldier was killed on the camp's edge, it became the deadliest day for the IDF since the end of the ].<ref name=Time/>


At 6:00 AM on April 9, reserve battalion&nbsp;7020's support company was ordered to form a new line, west of the former one. Its commander, Major Oded Golomb, set out with a force to take a position in a new house. He strayed from the original path, perhaps for tactical considerations, but failed to report to his commander. The force walked into a Palestinian ambush, finding themselves in an inner courtyard surrounded by tall houses (later nicknamed "the bathtub") and under fire from all directions, and were also attacked by a suicide bomber. Rescue forces from the company and the battalion hurried to the location and were attacked with small-arms fire and explosive charges. The exchange of fire went on for several hours.<ref name="harel256" />
=== Change in Israeli tactics ===
]R ] used by the ] during the battle.]]
After the ] ambush, the IDF changed tactics, presumably in order to continue the operation without risking more Israeli deaths, and increased to a dozen the ] ]s in operation. The IDF maintained that the heavy bulldozers were mainly used to clear walls and streets of ]s, open routes and widen alleyways for ]s, and to secure locations and movement for IDF troops. '']'' reported that while houses were knocked down by the bulldozers, they could not have buried the amount of people alleged by Palestinians since it takes a half-hour to fully wreck a building, and because Israeli soldiers say they always called any residents to leave in advance. Even if civilians were too frightened to leave initially, they surely would once the D9 started working. A senior Palestinian military officer told ''Time'' that the gunmen's own booby traps probably buried some civilians and fighters alive, some of the larger charges capable of more devastation than a D9.<ref name=Time/>


A reconnaissance aircraft documented much of the fight and the footage was transmitted live and was watched in the ] war room by the high-ranking officers. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed, and the Palestinians managed to snatch three of the bodies and drag them into a nearby house. A rescue force of ] naval commandos under Colonel ] was quickly assembled. Mofaz told Rothberg that negotiation over the bodies might force the IDF to halt the operation and get it in trouble similar to the ]. On the edge of the alley leading to "the bathtub", Rothberg questioned the wounded reservists. Finally, the commando force entered the house where the bodies were being held, killed the Palestinian militants in close-range combat, and extracted the bodies. In the afternoon, all Israeli casualties were evacuated from the area.<ref name="harel256-257">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), pp. 256–257</ref> A few hours after the ambush, a Golani Brigade soldier was killed at the edge of the refugee camp. With the loss of fourteen soldiers, it became the deadliest day for the IDF since the end of the ].<ref name="Time" />
A day later, ] and two other militants went into a house so as to get close enough to a tank or armoured D-9 bulldozer to plant a bomb. According to a British military expert working in the camp for ], a D9 driver probably saw him and rammed a wall down onto him. Tawallbe's name subsequently became familiar in the Arab world.<ref name=Time/>


During that day, the IDF censored reports on the events, leading to a wave of rumors. Partial information leaked through phone calls made by reservists and internet sites. By evening, when Chief of Central Command, Brigadier General Yitzhak Eitan, had a press conference, there were rumors of a helicopter carrying dozens of troops shot down, the death of the Ramatkal's deputy, and a heart attack suffered by the ].<ref name="harel257" />
The D9s led Israeli forces deeper into the camp until on the ninth day, a D9 sliced the wall off a house in the heavily defended Hawashin district, and 39 dazed gunmen surrendered with their hands in the air. Among the militants were ] members Tabaat Mardawi and Ali Suleiman al-Saadi, known as ''Safouri'', Israeli targets responsible for a number of attacks and whose incarceration meant the combat would soon end.<ref name=Time/>


After the ambush, all Israeli forces began to advance by Buchris' tactics, utilizing armored bulldozers and Achzarit APCs in their push. Israeli forces also relied heavily on increased missile strikes from helicopters. Several officers demanded that ] jets be sent to bomb the camp, but the IDF High Command refused.<ref name="harel257">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 257</ref> The dozen bulldozers and APCs pushed deep into the heart of the camp, flattening a built-up area of 200 square yards, destroying militant strongpoints.<ref name="Time" />
According to ''Time'', "It was real urban warfare, as a modern, well-equipped army met an armed and prepared group of guerrilla fighters intimately familiar with the local terrain. For both sides, Jenin has been added to the memories that invest the conflict in the Middle East with such bitterness." A total of 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the street fighting.<ref name=Time/>


As the Palestinian fighters' resistance faltered against the sheer force of the Israeli assault and their supplies of food and ammunition dwindled, Israeli troops mopped up the final resistance.<ref>, p. 203</ref><ref>, p. 185</ref> At 7:00 AM on April 11, the Palestinians began to surrender. Qabha refused to surrender and was killed, being among the last to die.<ref name="harel257" /> Most of the Palestinian fighters were either killed or captured. Some managed to escape the city and slip through the ring of Israeli troops and tanks around it. Among them was ] who moved through the houses and left.<ref name="harel258">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 258</ref> Mardawi surrendered along with Ali Suleiman al-Saadi, known as "Safouri", and thirty-nine others.<ref name="Time" /> He later said that "There was nothing I could do against that bulldozer".<ref name="CNNMardawi" />
== Aftermath ==
]
The introduction of the heavily ]s, which shrugged off explosives and ] alike, <ref>http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/22/jenin.fighter/index.html</ref> and the threat of being buried alive, caused the Palestinian militants to surrender. Later, IDF forces withdrew gradually from the refugee camp under international pressure.


==Battle aftermath==
After the conflict Israeli reports claim that 8-9% of the houses within the refugee camp were destroyed. This was largely within an area of intense fighting of approximately 100 m by 100 m according to the IDF. <ref>http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/4/Aerial%20Photographs%20of%20Jenin</ref>. An area within the refugee camp, 100 m by 200 m according to some (up to 400 m by 500 m by other estimates)<ref>{{cite news | title=Blasted to rubble by the Israelis | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/16/wmid16.xml&sSheet=/portal/2002/04/16/ixport.html | date=17 April, 2002 | publisher=] | author=] | accessdate=2007-02-22}}</ref><ref name=AI>{{cite web
]
| title =Israel and the Occupied Territories Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus
]
| publisher = Amnesty International
The battle ended on April 11. Medical teams from Canada, France, and Italy, as well as UN and ICRC officials, with trucks carrying supplies and water waited outside the camp for clearance to enter for days, but were denied entry, with Israel citing ongoing military operations.<ref name=Winslowp68>Winslow, 2007, .</ref> The first independent observers were granted access to the camp on April 16.<ref name=Europap33>Europa, 2004, .</ref> Israeli troops began withdrawing from the camp itself on April 18.<ref name=McDonalp581>McDonald and Fischer, 2005, /</ref><ref name="massacreevidence" /> Tanks ringed the perimeter of the camp for a few more days, but by April 24, Israeli troops had withdrawn from the autonomous zone of Jenin.<ref name=Sweet>{{cite web|title=Palestinians bury their dead in Jenin: Troops pull back, tanks ring perimeter of West Bank camp|work=Chicago Sun-Times|date=April 21, 2002|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1442508.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104050635/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1442508.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 4, 2012}}</ref><ref name=Vidalp170>Gresh and Vidal, 2004, p. 170.</ref>
| date = ]
| url = http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE151432002?open&of=ENG-PSE
| accessdate = 2007-09-05}}
</ref> was reported to have been flattened. <ref name=BBCexpert>. BBC News, 29 April 2002</ref> Reports added that six (globalsecurity.org) or ten (BBC) percent of the camp were destroyed in the fighting.<ref> (])</ref> <ref name="BBCmartyrs"/>


===Removal of bodies===
Most of the demolition occurred in the Hawashin neighborhood, where most of the militants and explosives remained. Israel states that it demolished those houses because they were densely rigged with explosives.<ref name=Ahram/>
The IDF announced that it would not withdraw its troops from the Jenin camp until it had collected the bodies of the Palestinian dead.<ref name="courtrejects" /> The army would not confirm Palestinian reports that military trucks had removed dozens of bodies, nor would it comment on whether or not burials had taken place.<ref name=Europap571>Europa, 2004, .</ref>


According to '']'', some of the bodies had already been removed from the camp by soldiers to a site near Jenin on April 11, but had not yet been buried. Palestinians allegedly buried others during the battle in a mass grave near the hospital on the outskirts of the camp.<ref name="courtrejects">{{cite news |last=Harel |first=Amos |author2=Gideon Alon|author3= Jalal Bana |title=Court rejects petitions demanding IDF not remove Jenin dead |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 14, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/court-rejects-petitions-demanding-idf-not-remove-jenin-dead-1.47836}}</ref> On the evening of April 11, Israeli television showed footage of refrigerator trucks waiting outside the camp to transfer bodies to "terrorist cemeteries".<ref name=Reinhartp219 /> On April 12, ''Haaretz'' reported that <blockquote>"The IDF intends to bury today Palestinians killed in the West Bank camp ... The sources said two infantry companies, along with members of the military rabbinate, will enter the camp today to collect bodies. Those who can be identified as civilians will be moved to a hospital in Jenin, and then on to burial, while those identified as terrorists will be buried at a special cemetery in the ]."<ref name=Reinhartp219>Reinhart, 2006, .</ref></blockquote>
In October 2002, according to the Walla news agency, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas websites reported that their forces in Jenin before the Israeli entry included 250 armed militants. The official ] radio station reported that 15,000 explosive charges were at the militants' disposal, as well as a large number of handguns. The militants were well organized and had an extensive system of communications.


The same day, in response to a petition presented by the ] organization, the ] ordered the IDF to stop removing the bodies of Palestinians killed in battle until after a hearing on the matter. MK ], one of many signatories to the petition before the court, said that removing the bodies from the city violated international law and was "intended to hide the truth from the public about the killing that occurred there".<ref name="courtidf">{{cite news |last=Harel |first=Amos |author2=Anat Cygielman |author3=Jalal Bana |title=Court: IDF can't move bodies; Lieberman: Barak must be ousted |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 13, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=151643 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001031904/http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=151643 |archive-date=October 1, 2007 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Following the court's decision, issued by Supreme Court President ], the IDF stopped clearing the bodies from the camp.<ref name="courtrejects" /> It was reported{{by whom|date=September 2014}} that by the afternoon of April 13, the IDF had determined the location of 23 bodies in the camp which were marked on maps.<ref name="courtrejects" /> On April 14, the Supreme Court reversed its decision, and ruled that the IDF could remove the bodies.<ref name="courtrejects" /><ref name=Europap571 /> IDF Chief of Staff ] confirmed to Israeli media on April 14 that the army intended to bury the bodies in the special cemetery.<ref name="courtrejects" />
] interviewed with "Omar the Engineer", a Palestinian bombmaker who claimed that some 50 homes were booby trapped. "We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them," he said.<ref name=Ahram/>


On April 15 humanitarian aid organizations were granted access to the camp for the first time since the invasion had begun.<ref name=Europap571 /> ] and ] staff entered the camp, accompanied by the IDF. Officials from the Red Crescent told lawyer ] that the IDF did not allow them to move around the camps freely, and that advanced decomposition, as well as the enormous destruction in the camp, made it impossible to find and retrieve bodies without the proper equipment. That same day Adalah and LAW, the ], filed a petition asking the Court to order the IDF to immediately hand over the bodies of Palestinians to the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, saying that the bodies of dead Palestinians were being left to rot in the camp.<ref name="hass">{{cite news |last=Hass |first=Amira |author2=Moshe Reinfeld |title=Court told: IDF leaving dead to rot in Jenin |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 16, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=152568 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071002044635/http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=152568 |archive-date=October 2, 2007 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> On April 19, a day after Israeli troops withdrew from the camp, journalists reported counting about 23 bodies that were lined up on the outdoor grounds of the clinic, before being quickly buried by Palestinians.<ref name=Sweet />
According to Lt. Colonel Adir Haruvi of the IDF, numerous buildings, passages and even bodies were booby-trapped, often prompting Israelis to use armored bulldozers to level numerous buildings.<ref>http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/memoranda/memo63.pdf</ref> The Israelis also claimed to have found more than a dozen explosive-making labs. {{Fact|date=August 2007}}


] notes that later Israeli media reports attempted to conceal and reinterpret their intention to transfer the bodies to the special cemetery in the Jordan Valley. As an example, she cites a July 17, 2002 article by ] in ''Haaretz'' which provided a wholly different explanation for the presence of the refrigerator trucks posted outside the city on April 11. Schiff's article said: "Toward the end of the fighting, the army sent three large refrigerator trucks into the city. Reservists decided to sleep in them for their air-conditioning. Some Palestinians saw dozens of covered bodies lying in the trucks and rumors spread that the Jews had filled the trucks full of Palestinian bodies."<ref name=Reinhartp219 />
== Body count estimates ==
Palestinian initial estimates were of hundreds of casualties while Israeli officials gave estimates as high as 150 deaths. In examples cited in the time line below, figures include both civilians and armed combatants unless otherwise indicated.


==Invasion aftermath==
*April 2 - Jenin is cut off and the incursion begin the following day.


===Military analyses===
*April 6 - in an ] emergency meeting ], at the time a Palestinian chief negotiator, delivers a speech in which he claims the IDF soldiers were commanded to completely destroy Jenin and compares Israeli actions in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus to the ].<ref name=CAMERA> by Yehuda Kraut (])<br>* April 6, 'Arabs set terms for meeting with Powell' by Deutsche Presse-Agentur <br>* April 7, 'Israel warns Lebanon, Syria they risk a new border war' by Betsy Pisik, Washington Times ()</ref>
The Israelis said they found explosive-making labs and factories for assembling ].<ref name="saporito">{{cite magazine |issn=0040-781X |last=Saporito |first=Bill |title=Jenin: Defiant to the Death |magazine=Time |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 14, 2002 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,230385-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080622151535/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,230385-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 22, 2008}}</ref> One Israeli special forces commander who fought in the camp said that "the Palestinians were admirably well prepared. They correctly analyzed the lessons of the previous raid".<ref name="harel255" /> Mardawi told CNN from prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, "It was like hunting ... like being given a prize. ... The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed. ... I've been waiting for a moment like that for years".<ref name="CNNMardawi">{{cite news|title=Palestinian fighter describes 'hard fight' in Jenin |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=September 18, 2008 |date=April 23, 2002 |url=http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/22/jenin.fighter/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080109035330/http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/22/jenin.fighter/index.html |archive-date=January 9, 2008 }}</ref>


General ], Head of the IDF Operations Directorate, said "There were indications it was going to be hard, but we didn't think it was going to be so hard".<ref name="Time" /> An internal investigation published by the IDF six months after the battle implicitly cast the responsibility for the death of the thirteen soldiers on the soldiers themselves, for straying from their path unreported. It also said that the focusing on the rescue instead of subduing the enemy complicated things.<ref name="harel258" /> Buchris was given the ].<ref name="citation" />
*April 7 - ], a Palestinian minister and chief Palestinian negotiator is quoted in the '']'' making the first allegation of a massacre made in a Western media publication.<ref name=CAMERA/>
::*] hears from Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority ] that "over 250 Palestinians killed".<ref name=CAMERA/>


PLO Chairman ], who left the ] in Ramallah for the first time in five months on May 14, 2002 to visit Jenin and other West Bank cities affected in Operation Defensive Shield, praised the refugees' endurance and compared the fighting to the ].<ref name="bennet">{{cite news |last=Bennet |first=James |title=Arafat Finally Leaves Ramallah, But Avoids Testy Crowd at Camp |work=The New York Times |access-date=February 22, 2009 |date=May 14, 2002 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/world/arafat-finally-leaves-ramallah-but-avoids-testy-crowd-at-camp.html?pagewanted=all}}</ref> Addressing a gathering of about 200 people in Jenin, he said: "People of Jenin, all the citizens of Jenin and the refugee camp, this is Jenin-grad. Your battle has paved the way to the liberation of the occupied territories".<ref name=whitaker>{{cite news |last=Whitaker |first=Brian |title=Anger as Arafat shuns camp |work=The Guardian |access-date=February 22, 2009 |date=May 14, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/Archive/Article/0,4273,4412968,00.html|location=London}}</ref> The battle became known among the Palestinians as "Jeningrad".<ref name="jeningrad">{{cite news |last=Belden |first=Paul |title=A street fight called Jeningrad |work=Asia Times |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 9, 2003 |url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED09Ak04.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030411070922/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED09Ak04.html|url-status=unfit|archive-date=April 11, 2003}}</ref>
*April 10 - BBC reports that Israel estimates 150 Palestinians died in Jenin but Palestinians say the number is far higher.<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1920463.stm</ref>
::*] on a phone interview to CNN from ], estimates 500 dead in the whole ] and states that the Jenin refuge camp no longer exists and that reports of executions are coming from there.<ref></ref> Israelis gave their response a short time later saying that it is a fabrication and a lie.<ref></ref>


The battle attracted the interest of the US military, which was trying to build a doctrine for urban warfare as the ] loomed. US military observers were sent to study the fighting. US officers dressed in IDF uniforms were reportedly present during the final stages of the battle. The ] studied the battle, and a ] delegation was sent to Israel to make changes to US Marine Corps doctrine based on the battle.<ref>''Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory and Power'', p. 134</ref>
*April 11 - negotiated surrender of 34 Palestinian militants. Palestinians are reporting 500 dead.<ref></ref>


===Damages===
*April 12 - Fighting ends
The BBC reported that ten percent of the camp was "virtually rubbed out by a dozen armoured Israeli bulldozers."<ref name="BBCmartyrs" /> David Holley, a Major in the ] and a military adviser to ], reported that an area within the refugee camp of about 100&nbsp;m by 200&nbsp;m was flattened.<ref name="BBCexpert">{{cite news |title=Expert weighs up Jenin 'massacre' |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 29, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1957862.stm}}</ref> According to Stephen Graham, the IDF had systematically bulldozed an area measuring 160 by 250&nbsp;m in the Jenin refugee camp.<ref name=Grahamp207>Graham, 2004, .</ref> The Hawashin neighbourhood was levelled.<ref name=MacDonaldp82 /> Many residents had no advance warning, and some were buried alive.<ref name=MacDonaldp82>MacDonald, 2007, .</ref>
::*IDF Brigadier-General Ron Kitrey said on ] that there are apparently hundreds killed, the IDF quickly clarified he meant hundreds of casualties (killed or injured).<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/12/midreu.xml</ref> Secretary-General of Palestinian Authority ] alleged, according to United Press International as a reaction to Kitrey's initial comments, that thousands of Palestinians were either killed and buried in massive graveyards or smashed under houses destroyed in Jenin and Nablus. He claimed that the Israelis took hundreds of bodies to northern Israel to hide a massacre and added that, ''"This massacre is not less than the massacres committed against the Palestinian people in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon"''<ref>http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/12/163750.shtml</ref> Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said he did not believe thousands of people were killed and added that ''"in places where there are battles, people get killed"''.


] (HRW) and ] (AI) reported that an estimated 4,000 people, more than a quarter of the population of the camp, were rendered homeless because of this destruction. HRW listed 140 buildings, most of which housed multiple families, as completely destroyed, and 200 other buildings as sustaining damage rendering them uninhabitable or unsafe for use. AI said complete destruction affected 164 houses with 374 apartment units, and that other buildings had been partially destroyed. Israel said those numbers were exaggerations.<ref name=Winslowp221>Winslow, 2007, .</ref>
*April 13 - Palestinian Information Minister, ], accuses Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp, half of them women and children. <ref>, </ref>
*April 14-15 - After IDF reportedly estimate 188 Palestinians were killed<ref>http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/security/articles/sec_0240.htm</ref> and one spokesperson estimated the number at 250<ref>http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/15/1018333482108.html?oneclick=true</ref>, a final figure of 45 is given.


On May 31, 2002, the Israeli newspaper '']'' published an interview with ], nicknamed "Kurdi Bear", a D-9 operator who took part in the battle. Nissim said he had driven his D-9 for seventy-five hours straight, drinking whiskey to avoid fatigue, and that apart from a two-hour training course before the battle, he had no prior experience in driving a bulldozer. He said he had begged his officers to let him destroy more houses and added: <br /> ''"I didn't see, with my own eyes, people dying under the blade of the D-9 and I didn't see house falling down on live people. But if there were any, I wouldn't care at all ... <br />"But the real thing started the day 13 of our soldiers were killed up that alley in the Jenin refugee camp.<br /> "If we had moved into the building where they were ambushed, we would have buried all those Palestinians alive. <br />"I kept thinking of our soldiers. I didn't feel sorry for all those Palestinians who were left homeless. I just felt sorry for their children, who were not guilty. There was one wounded child, who was shot by Arabs. A Golani paramedic came down and changed his bandages, till he was evacuated. We took care of them, of the children. The soldiers gave them candy. But I had no mercy for the parents of these children. I remembered the picture on television, of the mother who said she will bear children so that they will explode in Tel Aviv. I asked the Palestinian women I saw there: 'Aren't you ashamed?'"'' <ref name=nissim>Winslow (2008), pp. 69–70.</ref><ref>] in Hebrew. English translation of the full interview: <br /> . By Tsadok Yeheskeli, ''Yediot Aharonot''</ref>
*April 15 - When asked by ], in a ] interview, about the accusations that the Israeli troops committed a massacre at the Jenin camp, Israeli Prime Minister ], replied that that there are very hard battles in the camp, and noted to Blitzer that, while ''"you already know that this story is a lie."'', he is still using the 'massacre' term.<ref name="CNN15April"></ref>


===Casualties===
::*Palestinian Cabinet Minister (also ] ] in 2005) ], in a Palestinian reaction to the interview with Sharon, accused the Israeli Prime Minister for resembling ] and claimed it is a second ] by him. Shaath added that the actual death toll is unknown because, ''"already a lot of the bodies have been snatched and buried elsewhere in unidentified graves that we learned about during the Jenin massacre."'' and added an allegation that Sharon ''"took six days to perpetrate the massacre and six days for a cover-up."''.<ref name="CNN15April"/>
{{See also|Israeli casualties of war|Palestinian casualties of war}}
Reporting of casualty numbers during the invasion varied widely and fluctuated day to day. On April 10, the BBC reported that Israel estimated 150 Palestinians had died in Jenin, and Palestinians were saying the number was far higher.<ref name="israelipullout">{{cite news |title=Israeli pull-out on hold after bombing |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 10, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1920463.stm}}</ref> That same day, ], on a phone interview to CNN from ], estimated that there were a total of 500 Palestinians killed during ], this figure also including fatalities outside of the Jenin camp, in other areas of the West Bank.<ref name="colinpowell">{{cite news |title=Colin Powell's Challenge |work=CNN.com |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 10, 2002 |url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0204/10/i_ins.00.html}}</ref> On April 11, ] of CNN reported that Palestinians were reporting 500 dead, while international relief agencies were saying possibly as many as 200; he noted that his efforts to independently verify the claims had so far come to naught since people were being prevented from entering the camp by Israeli soldiers.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wedeman |first=Ben |title=Access to Jenin difficult |publisher=CNN |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 11, 2002 |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/11/wedeman.otsc/index.html}}</ref>


On April 12, Brigadier-General Ron Kitri said on ] that there were apparently hundreds of Palestinians killed in Jenin. He later retracted this statement.<ref name="sadeh">{{cite news |last=Sadeh |first=Sharon |title=How Jenin battle became a 'massacre' |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 18, 2008 |date=May 16, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/may/06/mondaymediasection5 |location=London |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081005093332/http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/may/06/mondaymediasection5 |archive-date=October 5, 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref> Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, said that thousands of Palestinians had been killed and buried in mass graves, or lay under houses destroyed in Jenin and ].<ref>{{cite news |title=Palestinians: Hundreds in mass graves |publisher=] |access-date=July 22, 2021 |date=April 13, 2002 |url=https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2002/04/13/Palestinians-Hundreds-in-mass-graves/47761018714688/ }}</ref> On April 13, Palestinian Information Minister, ], accused Israel of killing 900 Palestinians in the camp and burying them in mass graves.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sabcnews.com/world/the_middle_east/0,2172,32177,00.html|title=Jenin refugee camp emerges defeated|website=sabcnews.com|access-date=August 22, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929124547/http://www.sabcnews.com/world/the_middle_east/0,2172,32177,00.html|archive-date=September 29, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> On April 14, ] reported that the exact number of Palestinian dead was still unknown, but that the IDF placed the toll between 100 and 200.<ref name="courtrejects" /> On April 18, Zalman Shoval, adviser to Sharon, said that only about 65 bodies had been recovered, five of them civilians.<ref name="massacreevidence">{{cite news |title=Jenin 'massacre evidence growing' |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 18, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1937048.stm}}</ref> On April 30, ], director of the ] for the northern ], said the number of dead was 56.<ref name="martin">{{cite news |last=Martin |first=Paul |title=Jenin 'massacre' reduced to death toll of 56 |work=The Washington Times |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=May 1, 2002 |url=https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-85266959 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
::*On this date, the first observers were allowed into the camp.<ref name="CNN15April"/><ref name=AI/>


Based on figures provided by the Jenin hospital and the IDF, the UN report placed the Palestinian death toll at 52 Palestinian, around half of whom were thought to be civilians.<ref name="unsays">{{cite news |title=UN says no massacre in Jenin |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=August 1, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2165272.stm}}</ref> In 2004, Haaretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff wrote that 23 Israeli soldiers had died and 52 had been wounded; Palestinian casualties were 53 dead, hundreds wounded and about 200 captured.<ref name="harel257-258">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), pp. 257–258</ref> Human Rights Watch reported that at least 52 Palestinians died of whom at least 22 were civilians and at least 27 were suspected militants, and that it was unable to conclusively determine the status of the remaining three.<ref name="hrwreport" /> According to retired IDF General ], the death toll was 55 Palestinians.<ref name="gazit">Herzog & Gazit (2005), p. 433</ref> Israeli officials estimated that 52 Palestinians were killed: 38 armed men and 14 civilians.<ref name="Bernanp434" />
*April 18 - Zalmon Shoval, adviser to Prime Minister Sharon, defended Israel's actions, saying it was fighting for its life; estimating that only about 65 bodies had been recovered, of which five were civilians.<ref name="BBC18Apr"/>


IDF and Israeli government sources reported that 23 Israeli soldiers were killed and 75 wounded. The UN report also noted that 23 IDF soldiers had been killed. The only exception was retired IDF General ], who initially said that 33 soldiers had died in Jenin.<ref name="gazit" /> This contradicted not only most IDF and other sources, but also IDF figures of 30 Israeli deaths total in ].
*April 30 - ], the director of Yasser Arafat's ] movement for the northern ] set the total dead at 56 after a team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reported to him in his Jenin office.<ref name="WashTimes0501">{{cite news
| author = Paul Martin
| title = Jenin `massacre´ reduced to death toll of 56
| url = http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/jenin.htm
| format = Reprint
| work = PAGE ONE
| publisher = The Washington Times
| page = 01
| date = 2002-05-01
| accessdate = 2007-09-17
| language = English
}}<br><small>Archived from Washington Times site; as retrieved from </small></ref>
::* Considering the Palestinian body count the ], ], suggested that he may disband the U.N. fact-finding team supposed to determine whether a massacre had taken place.


===Massacre allegations===
According to the ] (which was prevented from making a visit), "at least 52" Palestinian deaths were confirmed.<ref name=UN/> ] ''"confirmed that at least fifty-two Palestinians were killed ... This figure may rise"''.<ref></ref> No other Palestinian deaths from the battle have been confirmed since this time. The IDF estimate the number at 52. The designation of combatants differs (IDF counts 38 "armed men", HRW counts 30 "militants"). Palestinian ] investigators claimed the death toll is 56,<ref name="Qadoura56"/> announced on April 30 by Qadoura Moussa, the Fatah director for the Northern West Bank. 23 Israeli soldiers were also killed.<ref></ref>
The battle attracted widespread international attention due to allegations by Palestinians that a massacre had been committed. Reporters from various international media outlets quoted local residents who described houses being bulldozed with families still inside, helicopters firing indiscriminately into civilian areas, ambulances being prevented from reaching the wounded,<ref name="crucible">{{cite news |last=Beaumont |first=Peter |title=Ten-day ordeal in crucible of Jenin |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 14, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/14/israel |location=London}}</ref> summary executions of Palestinians,<ref name="smh">{{cite news |issn=0312-6315 |title=Evidence and Reality Collide in a Battle of Words |work=Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=September 21, 2008 |url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/15/1018333482108.html?oneclick=true |date=April 16, 2002}}: A camp resident who worked at the Jenin hospital said: "I saw the Israelis line up five young men with their legs spread and their hands up as they faced a wall. The soldiers then sprayed them from head to toe with gunfire."</ref> and stories of bodies being driven away in trucks or left in the sewers and bulldozed.<ref name="conflictin">{{cite news |title=Conflict in the Middle East: Fierce Fighting Continues in Jenin |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 12, 2002 |url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0204/12/lt.01.html}}</ref> ], a Palestinian cabinet minister, accused the Israelis of trying to cover up the killing of civilians.<ref name="jerusalemsuicide">{{cite news |title=Jerusalem suicide bomber kills at least six |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 12, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/12/israel4 |location=London}}</ref> The CNN correspondent noted that due to the IDF closure of the camp, there was "no way of confirming" the stories.<ref name="conflictin" /> During and immediately after the battle, the United Nations and several human rights NGOs also expressed concern about the possibility of a massacre. A British forensic expert who was part of an ] team granted access to Jenin on April 18 said, "the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."<ref name="massacreevidence" />


Israel denied charges of a massacre, and a lone April 9 report in the Israeli press stating Foreign Minister ] privately referred to the battle as a "massacre"<ref name="perescalls">{{cite news|last=Benn |first=Aluf |author2=Amos Harel |title=Peres calls IDF operation in Jenin a 'massacre' |work=] |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 9, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=150051}}</ref> was immediately followed by a statement from Peres expressing concern that "Palestinian propaganda is liable to accuse Israel that a 'massacre' took place in Jenin rather than a pitched battle against heavily armed terrorists."<ref name="peresfears">{{cite news|agency=Reuters |title=Peres fears Palestinians will distort Jenin battle |work=] |access-date=September 21, 2008|date=April 10, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=150149}}</ref>
===Allegations of a massacre===
The battle attracted widespread international attention due to Palestinian allegations that ] was committed and as a result of inflated reports on body counts by Palestinian officials and Jenin residents.<ref name="tele-daud"></ref> Journalists and international groups were banned by the IDF from entering the camp during the fighting on safety grounds, and at one point the IDF itself reported casualties as high as 250,<ref name=CNNPowell/><ref name="Crucible"/>
<ref>: "First the Israelis talked of scores and then there were dozens. Early yesterday an IDF spokesman said the figure was likely to be "several hundred" dead Palestinians and 23 dead Israelis. Another spokesman put the estimate at a precise 250 Palestinians dead, but by last night the IDF count of dead Palestinians had been wound back significantly to 45."</ref><ref>: "Worse still, the IDF was releasing what turned out to be erroneous, highly inflated estimates of Palestinian casualties ... guessed at by field commanders based on the intensity of the fighting. While our office was saying around 150 Palestinians were killed, I heard very senior generals say up to 200, and the press quoted defense officials with numbers ranging as high as 250. These estimates made the Palestinian claims of 500 dead seem reasonable."<br><small>Archived from The New Republic: as retrieved from </small></ref><ref>: "The army's chief spokesman, Brigadier General Ron Kitrey, told Army Radio that there were 'apparently hundreds of dead' ...
But the Israel defence forces later issued a statement that it 'wished to clarify that comments made this morning regarding Jenin refer to casualties - those killed and wounded'."</ref> yet many journalists reported that a ] of Palestinian civilians may have taken place during the fighting,<ref></ref><ref name="azure"/><ref name="BBC18Apr"></ref> and unconfirmed "eyewitness" claims that hundreds, or even thousands, of bodies had been secretly buried in ]s by the IDF were spread.<ref name="azure"/><ref></ref><ref name="csmon1"></ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Evidence and reality collide in a battle of words/43-year-old Muiassar Abu Ali interview|publisher=]|date=16 April 2002||url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/15/1018333482108.html?oneclick=true}}</ref><ref name="tele-daud"/> These allegations were aired widely in the ] and ] media (most prominently in the ]), inciting extreme antipathy toward Israel.<ref name="azure"/><ref name="csmon1"/> Critics in conservative American publications responded by alleging a "Big Jenin Lie".<ref></ref><ref></ref>


Subsequent investigations and reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, ''Time'' magazine, and the BBC all concluded there was no massacre of civilians, with estimated death tolls of 46–55 people among reports by the IDF, the Jenin office of the United Nations, and the Jenin Hospital.<ref>Rees, ''Time'' magazine: "Charles Kapes, the deputy chief of the U.N. office in the camp, says 54 dead have been pulled from the wreckage and 49 Palestinians are missing, of whom 18 are residents of the camp," "the Israelis say they found 46 dead in the rubble, including a pile of five bodies that had been booby-trapped," "The Jenin Hospital, meanwhile, says 52 camp residents died, including five women and four children under the age of 15. Of the 43 dead men, eight were 55 or older and therefore probably not involved in the fighting."</ref> A team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reporting to Fatah numbered total casualties of 56,<ref name="martin" /> as disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank.
According to the ], International organizations, non-governmental organizations, and many foreign governments prematurely attacked Israel for committing atrocities during its military operations and before the facts were in. But while a massacre of hundreds was alleged, reported and condemned, it is now essentially certain that no such massacre occurred.<ref>http://www.adl.org/Israel/jenin/jenin.pdf (page 38)</ref>


The UN report to the Secretary General noted "Palestinians had claimed that between 400 and 500 people had been killed, fighters and civilians together. They had also claimed a number of summary executions and the transfer of corpses to an unknown place outside the city of Jenin. The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55."<ref name=UNreportIV>.</ref> While noting the number of civilian deaths might rise as rubble was cleared, the report continued, "nevertheless, the most recent estimates by UNRWA and ICRC show that the number of missing people is constantly declining as the IDF releases Palestinians from detention."<ref name=UNreport /> ] completed its report on Jenin in early May, stating "there was no massacre," but accusing the IDF of war crimes,<ref name="wood">{{cite news |last=Wood |first =Paul |title='No Jenin massacre' says rights group |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008|date=May 3, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1965471.stm}}</ref> and Amnesty International's report concluded "No matter whose figures one accepts, "there was no massacre."<ref name="Time" /> Amnesty's report specifically observed that "after the IDF temporarily withdrew from Jenin refugee camp on April 17, UNRWA set up teams to use the census lists to account for all the Palestinians (some 14,000) believed to be resident of the camp on April 3, 2002. Within five weeks all but one of the residents was accounted for."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/143/2002/en/|title=Israel and the Occupied Territories Shielded from Scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus|publisher=] |access-date=September 11, 2009}}</ref> A BBC report later noted, "Palestinian authorities made unsubstantiated claims of a wide-scale massacre,"<ref name="BBCmartyrs" /> and a reporter for '']'' opined that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre.<ref name="beaumont">{{cite news |last=Beaumont |first=Peter |title=Not a massacre, but a brutal breach of war's rules |work=] |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 25, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/GWeekly/Story/0,,689935,00.html |location=London}}</ref>
Many Arabs and Palestinians continue to use the term "Jenin Massacre" ({{lang-ar|مجزرة جنين}}).


===War crimes allegations===
==== Post-fighting investigations ====
At the same time, Human rights organizations and some media reports ].<ref>BBC: "Charges of war crimes committed by Israel were made."</ref> Human Rights Watch reported that of the Palestinians killed, "many of them were killed willfully or unlawfully, and in some cases constituted ]." Examples included the case of 57-year-old Kamal Zugheir who was shot and then run over by IDF tanks while in his wheelchair, and that of 37-year-old Jamal Fayid, a quadraplegic crushed to death in the rubble of his home after an IDF bulldozer advanced upon it, refusing to allow his family to intervene to remove him. It also documented the killing of a Palestinian militant who had already been wounded.<ref name="HRWbook">Human Rights Watch, 2004, p. .</ref> In November, Amnesty International reported that there was "clear evidence" that the IDF committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians, including unlawful killings and torture, in Jenin and Nablus.<ref name="rightgroup">{{cite news |title=Rights group accuses Israel of war crimes |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=November 4, 2002 |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/11/04/MN214134.DTL}}</ref> The report also accused Israel of blocking medical care, using people as human shields and bulldozing houses with residents inside, as well as beating prisoners, which resulted in one death, and preventing ambulances and aid organizations from reaching the areas of combat even after the fighting had reportedly been stopped.<ref name=greenberg>{{cite news |last=Greenberg |first=Joel |title=Amnesty Accuses Israeli Forces of War Crimes |work=The New York Times |access-date=January 20, 2009 |date=November 4, 2002 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/world/amnesty-accuses-israeli-forces-of-war-crimes.html?emc=rss&partner=rssnyt}}</ref> Amnesty criticized the UN report, noting that its officials did not actually visit Jenin.<ref name=macwilliam>{{cite news|last=MacWilliam |first=Ian |title=Amnesty says Jenin operation 'war crime' |publisher=BBC |access-date=January 20, 2009 |date=November 4, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2396071.stm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105160638/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2396071.stm|archive-date=January 5, 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref> The Observer reporter, Peter Beaumont, wrote that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre, but that the mass destruction of houses was a war crime.<ref name="beaumont" /> Some reports said that Israel's restriction of access to Jenin and refusal to allow the UN investigation access to the area were evidence of a coverup, a charge echoed by ], Director of the Palestinian American Research Center in Ramallah.<ref name="rabbani">{{cite journal|issue=May 2002 |last=Rabbani |first=Mouin |title=The Only Truth About Jenin Is the Israeli Cover-Up |journal=Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |access-date=September 21, 2008 |url=http://www.washington-report.org/archives/may2002/0205006.html}}</ref>
In an article about the battle in Jenin, '']'' ruled out Palestinian allegations of massacre, writing that:
:A Time investigation concludes that there was no wanton massacre in Jenin, no deliberate slaughter of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. But the 12 days of fighting took a severe toll on the camp.<ref name=Time/>


On the other side, Israeli media sources and analysts suggested media bias and propaganda efforts were the source of the allegations. Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari stated, "some correspondents might have been obsessive in their determination to unearth a massacre in a refugee camp".<ref name="marmari">{{cite news |last=Marmari |first=Hanoch |title=Digging beneath the surface in the Middle East conflict |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 20, 2008 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=173899&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y}}</ref> ] of ] said that the ] wanted "to turn Jenin into an '] episode'. Here the press was a willing partner they aspired to make Jenin a symbol of resistance to Palestinians".<ref name=gutmann171>Gutmann (2005), p. 171</ref> In May 2009, the IDF released a videotape showing what it called "a phony funeral that the Palestinians organized in order to multiply the number of casualties in Jenin," wherein a live person is wrapped in a green sheet and marched in a procession.<ref name="idftape">{{cite news |title=IDF: Tape shows Palestinians faked funeral |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=October 4, 2008 |date=May 3, 2002 |url=http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/05/03/jenin.tape/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928190607/http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/05/03/jenin.tape/ |archive-date=September 28, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> LAW, the ], held a press conference on May 8, disputing the conclusions drawn by Israel. LAW stated that ] who was in Jenin on April 28, making his documentary film '']'', shot the same footage from the ground, and that it shows a group of children playing "funeral" near the cemetery. LAW added that, "The media uncritically took up the Israeli spokesmen conclusions, without investigating what the footage actually shows."<ref name=LAW>{{cite web|title=Law refutes Israeli claims of staged Jenin 'burials'|date=May 8, 2002|url=http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0205b&L=fofognet&P=57|author=LAW-The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment|publisher=Rex Brynen on FOFOGNET|access-date=August 31, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308000617/http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0205b&L=fofognet&P=57|archive-date=March 8, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>
] ] visited Jenin during the month of the battle, and upon returning to the States testified to a congressional panel that there was no evidence of mass graves or a massacre.<ref></ref>


Harel and Issacharoff wrote that the IDF's misconduct with the media, including Kitri's statement, contributed to the allegations of massacre. Mofaz later admitted that the limitations imposed on the media were a mistake. Head of the Operations Directorate, General ], said: "Today, I would send a reporter in every APC".<ref name="harel259">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 259</ref> ], ], said the decision not to allow reporters into the camp was a difficult one: "The press people said 'Listen, the journalists aren't going to like it' and the operational people said 'We don't care about the journalists right now and about our image, we don't want them inside.' It had to do with the way we were working operationally inside the camp. We had infantry coming in from 360 degrees which means that you're firing in all different directions. It's not like a journalist can be on one side or another. It's a very difficult type of combat to coordinate with the forces, let alone with somebody you don't know who's inside."<ref name=gutmann167>Gutmann (2005), p. 167</ref>
] found no evidence for a massacre, but said "However, many of the civilian deaths documented by Human Rights Watch amounted to unlawful or willful killings by the IDF. Many others could have been avoided if the ] had taken proper precautions to protect civilian life during its military operation, as required by international humanitarian law." The human rights organization also criticized Palestinian militants for having endangered the lives of Palestinian civilians in part by "intermingling" with them.


In ]'s documentary '']'', a Palestinian doctor claimed that on the second day, the city's hospital was hit by eleven tank shells. However, in both Rehov's film and ]'s 2005 film '']'', the supposed hits shown on Jenin hospital were compared to an actual building hit by ] tank shelling, suggesting that the supposed hit marks were staged.<ref>Landes, Richard, '']'' (2005)</ref>
Derek Holley, a military advisor to Amnesty International, corroborated that there was no massacre. "Talking to people and talking to witnesses, even very credible witnesses, it just appears there was no wholesale killing." he added.


Lorenzo Cremonesi, the correspondent for the Italian newspaper ] in Jerusalem, writes in a 2009 article, that he slipped past the army barricades and entered the Jenin camp on April 13, 2002. He says the hospital was almost deserted as doctors played cards in the emergency room and that he spoke to 25 lightly wounded patients who told heartrending stories but when asked for names of the dead and urged to show where the bodies were, became evasive. "In short, it was all talk and nothing could be verified," wrote Cremonesi. "At the end of that day, I wrote that the death toll was not more than 50 and most of them were combatants". Cremonesi criticized Israel's exclusion of the media from Jenin and from ] during the ], saying, "If you hide something from me, that means first and foremost that you want to hide it, and secondly, that you have done something wrong."<ref name=cremonesi>{{cite news |last=Cremonesi |first=Lorenzo |title=Why Israel should let foreign journalists into Gaza |work=Haaretz |access-date=February 18, 2009 |date=January 12, 2009 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054592.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227024728/http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054592.html|archive-date=February 27, 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref>
== International statements and human rights reports ==
In late April and on ], ], the UN, ] and ] released reports about the Israeli military incursions into Jenin. The reports documented that approximately 30 Palestinian militants, 22 Palestinian civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and thus found no evidence to sustain claims that a massacre took place. However, HRW did say that Israel "committed serious violations of ], some amounting ] to war crimes,"<ref>http://hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/israel0502-01.htm#P49_1774</ref> while ] similarly alleged evidence that Israel had committed war crimes.


=== UN fact-finding mission ===
The ] questioned how HRW and AI could both acknowledge the lack of a supposed Israeli massacre and the endangerment of Palestinian civilians by Palestinian gunmen and still maintain its accusation of Israel, and labelled the reports prejudiced.<ref>,''Anti-Defamation League''</ref>
On April 18, as Israeli troops began pulling out of Jenin and Nablus, UN envoy ] entered the camp. He told reporters that the devastation was, "horrific beyond belief," and relayed his view that it was "morally repugnant" that Israel had not allowed emergency workers into the camp after the battle with Palestinian gunmen had ended.<ref name="jenincamp">{{cite news |title=Jenin camp 'horrific beyond belief' |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 18, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1937387.stm}}</ref> On April 19, the ] unanimously passed ] to send a fact-finding mission to Jenin. ] ] told ], the UN Secretary-General, that Israel would welcome a UN official "to clarify the facts", saying "Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in Jenin. Our hands are clean".<ref name="untosend">{{cite news |title=UN to send mission to Jenin |work=Telegraph |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 20, 2002 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1391591/UN-to-send-mission-to-Jenin.html |location=London}}</ref> Abed Rabbo said the mission was, "the first step toward making ] stand trial before an international tribunal".<ref name="vulliamy">{{cite news |last=Vulliamy |first=Ed |author2=Graham Usher |title=Israel: We have nothing to hide in Jenin probe |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 21, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/israelandthepalestinians.unitednations |location=London}}</ref>
=== UN visiting mission ===
The United Nations visiting mission ordered by the ] on 5 April 2002 and headed by ], ex-President of ] and ] was refused entry to Israel.
=== UN fact finding mission ===
The United Nations Security Council unanimously proposed a fact finding mission with resolution 1405 on ], ] (ie 8 days after the surrender of the majority of the militants). The Government of Israel considered the intitiative to set up the mission as "an anti-Israeli diplomatic offensive"{{Fact|date=August 2007}}.


The composition of the fact-finding team was announced on April 22. Led by former ], ], the other two members were ], former president of the ] (controversial in Israel for previous "Red Swastika" remarks),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer051002.asp|title=Charles Krauthammer|website=www.jewishworldreview.com}}</ref> and ], the former UN high commissioner for refugees who was Japan's special envoy on ] reconstruction.<ref name="benn">{{cite news |last=Benn |first=Aluf |author2=Shlomo Shamir |title=Ben-Eliezer, Peres to Annan: Israel unhappy with Jenin delegation |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 23, 2002 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=154678}}</ref>
While formally agreeing to co-operate with the inquiry, the government of Israel set a list of preconditions, three being most important to them:
* That the mission should include anti-terrorism experts. Derek Holley, an Amnesty International military advisor went public saying that this was necessary in a report posted by the BBC. <ref></ref>
* That the UN agree not to prosecute Israeli soldiers for any violations of ] which might be uncovered during by the mission.
* And that the mission limit its scope exclusively to events in Jenin.
These conditions were justified by the Israeli government's legal experts{{Who|date=July 2007}} on the grounds that "the conditions under which the UN proposed the mission were unfair, as the UN did not agree to give the anti-terrorism expert full membership, would not give the mission a strict mandate, nor declare the mission solely investigatory (as opposed to having a judicial purpose)". According to the Israeli legal experts, all three positions violate of the UN's own principles (as stated in the "Declaration on Fact-finding by the United Nations", A/RES/46/59 of ], ]){{Fact|date=August 2007}}.


Official Israeli sources expressed surprise that they were not consulted as to the composition of the team, adding that, "We expected that the operational aspects of the fact-finding mission would be carried out by military experts." On April 22, ], ] expressed his disappointment at the team's make-up, and his hope that the mission would not overstep its mandate. Peres asked Annan to deny reports that the mission would look into events outside the refugee camp, and that the findings would have legal validity. Annan said the findings would not be legally binding, and that the mission would only investigate events inside the camp, but may have to interview residents currently displaced outside.<ref name="benn" />
The UN refused to accept the last two conditions, whereupon the Israeli authorities announced that they would not allow the mission entry into any Israeli-controlled territory, nor cooperate with its activities in any way. Some commentators ascribed this to an agreement with Bush, who on 18th April told the world's press that Sharon "gave me a timetable and he’s met the timetable."<ref>. Retrieved 9th August 2007.</ref>


On April 23, ], the cabinet secretary, threatened to ban the team from entering Jenin.<ref name="goldenberg" /> In private discussions, ], Major General and Head of the IDF Operation Branch, convinced ] that the team would ask to investigate officers and soldiers, and that it might accuse Israel of war crimes, paving the way for the sending of an international force. Sharon accepted Eiland and Mofaz's position, and announced Israel's decision that the UN team was no longer acceptable on April 24, citing the lack of military experts.<ref name="goldenberg" /><ref name="harel260">Harel and Isacharoff (2004), p. 260</ref> The US rebuked Sharon's decision, and a ] official said, "We were the sponsors of that and we want it implemented as written. We support the initiative of the secretary general."<ref name="goldenberg">{{cite news |last=Goldenberg |first=Suzanne |title=Israel blocks UN mission to Jenin |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 24, 2002 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/24/israelandthepalestinians.unitednations |location=London}}</ref>
The members of the UN mission waited for several days in Switzerland. As described in several commentaries on the Israeli and international press at the time, the United Nations had several choices:
* Accept the Israeli conditions. Palestinian and other Arab diplomats at the UN headquarters made clear they would condemn such a move{{Fact|date=August 2007}};
* Proceed with the investigation without Israeli cooperation and without physical access to Jenin. This would have meant relying largely on Palestinian eye-witnesses who had been able to exit the ];
* Continue pressure on the Israeli Government to change its stance. This was felt to have little possibility of success in light of US support for Israel's position on the mission's team.{{Fact|date=August 2007}}


Annan initially refused to delay the mission. Expressing Israeli sentiment that the world ignored its victims, Ben-Eliezer said: "In the last month alone, 137 people were slaughtered by Palestinians and nearly 700 wounded. Is there any one who is investigating that?"<ref name="philps">{{cite news |last=Philps |first=Alan |title=Israel defies UN over Jenin mission |work=Telegraph |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 25, 2002 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1392196/Israel-defies-UN-over-Jenin-mission.html |location=London}}</ref> Saeb Erekat accused Israel of "trying to sabotage the mission. I believe that they have a big thing to hide."<ref name="philps" /> On April 25, the UN agreed to postpone the arrival of the team by two days, and acceded to an Israeli request that two military officers be added to the team. Annan said talks with Israel had been, "very, very constructive and I'm sure we'll be able to sort out our differences".<ref name="undelays">{{cite news |title=U.N. delays arrival of Jenin team until Sunday |publisher=CNN.com |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 26, 2002 |url=http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/26/un.jenin.mission/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080211081559/http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/26/un.jenin.mission/index.html |archive-date=February 11, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Peres said that a delay would give the Israeli cabinet the opportunity to discuss the mission before the team arrived.<ref name="jeninmission" />
On the ] ], UN Secretary General ] announced that he was disbanding the fact-finding mission.


Avi Pazner, an Israeli Government spokesman, said he expected the UN mission to investigate "terrorist activity" and guarantee immunity for Israeli soldiers. ] reported that Israel was also pushing for the right for both sides to review the team's report before its presentation to Annan.<ref name="jeninmission">{{cite news |title=Jenin mission delayed until Sunday |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 27, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1952508.stm}}</ref> Following a lengthy cabinet meeting on April 28, ], the ], told reporters that the UN had reneged on its agreements with Israel over the team, and so it would not be allowed to arrive. Speaking for the cabinet, he said that the composition of the team and its terms of reference made it inevitable that its report would blame Israel.<ref name="securitycouncil" />
On the ] ], the UN General Assembly passed<ref>http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/377/00/PDF/N0237700.pdf?OpenElement .resolution ES-10/10</ref>, condemning both the Israeli operations and Israel's refusal to cooperate with the fact-finding team. At the same time, the UN issued a press release<ref>http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/GA10015.doc.htm</ref> repeating the points made and including statements made by the representatives of individual nations. The GA requested the Secretary-General to present a report, drawing upon available resources and information.


The ] convened the following day to discuss Israel's decision not to grant entry to the UN team.<ref name="securitycouncil">{{cite news |last=Benn |first=Aluf |title=Security Council meets after Israel denies entry to UN team |work=Haaretz |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=April 29, 2002 |url=http://news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=156992 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001161524/http://news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=156992 |archive-date=October 1, 2007 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Meanwhile, the ] lobby in Washington was called to pressure Annan and ].<ref name="harel260" /> On April 30, Annan urged that the UN team, which had been waiting in ] to start its mission, be disbanded, and it was on May 2.<ref name="curtius">{{cite news |last=Curtius |first=Mary |author2=William Orme |title=Annan Urges U.N. to Drop Jenin Probe |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=May 1, 2002 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-may-01-fg-un1-story.html}}</ref><ref name="rte">{{cite news |title=Annan disbands Jenin investigation team |publisher=RTÉ News |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=May 3, 2002 |url=http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/0503/mideast01.html}}</ref> On May 4, Israel was isolated in an open debate in the Security Council. The deputy US ambassador to the UN, ], said it was "regrettable" Israel had decided not to cooperate with the fact-finding team. ], the Palestinian observer to the UN, said the council failed to give Annan its full support, and had caved to "blackmailing" by the Israeli Government.<ref name="israelisolated">{{cite news |title=Israel isolated in UN debate over Jenin mission |work=ABC News |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=May 4, 2002 |url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200205/s547690.htm}}</ref> The General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Israel's military action in Jenin by 74 votes to four, with 54 abstentions.<ref name="watson">{{cite news |last=Watson |first=Rob |title=UN condemns Israel over Jenin |publisher=BBC |access-date=September 21, 2008 |date=May 8, 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1974389.stm }}</ref> The Bush administration supported Israel as part of a deal in which Sharon agreed to lift the siege of the ] in ].<ref name="harel260" />
=== UN report ===
The UN report stated that fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the end of May 2002, which mirrored the IDF report, but fell short of the estimate by a senior Palestinian Authority official who had claimed that about five hundred were killed which was not corroborated by evidence.<ref name=UN/> This report was criticized by the group Human Rights Watch as being "flawed" due to a lack of first-hand evidence.<ref>http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/jenin080202.htm</ref> The report itself states that a fact-finding team led by ] was unable to visit the area as planned due to concerns of the Israeli government, which meant that the report had to rely on papers submitted by different nations and NGOs, and other documents.


===Reconstruction===
The report explains the rising violence of the first two years of the ], with particular reference to the suicide bombings that had been carried out. It describes all the operations carried out in the West Bank.
In the aftermath of the invasion, many camp residents ended up living in temporary shelters elsewhere.<ref name=Lughodp127>Sa'di and Abu-Lughod, 2007, .</ref> The camp itself became the site of intense efforts at documenting, recording and expressing the experiences of those displaced and affected by the incursion. In discussing how to properly honor those who had fallen, one proposal suggested leaving the destruction, at least in the Hawashin neighborhood, exactly as it was, as a memorial and testament to struggle and sacrifice. Camp residents, however, insisted that the camp be rebuilt almost exactly as it had been, while also establishing a museum of memory in the Old ] building. They rejected the proposal of the Israeli housing minister to rebuild the camp at a nearby site with enlarged roads, viewing it as an attempt to erase the political reality of the camps whose existence they see as living testaments to the ].<ref name=Lughodp128>Sa'di and Abu-Lughod, 2007, pp. 128–129.</ref>

On the subject of Jenin, it says the ''"IDF urged civilians in Arabic to evacuate the camp. Some reports, including of interviews with IDF soldiers, suggest that those warnings were not adequate ..... Estimates vary on how many civilians remained in the camp throughout but there may have been as many as 4,000."''

The UN report confirmed that "at least 52 Palestinians" deaths were reported by the Jenin hospital by the end of May 2002 and that Palestinian reports of 500 dead had not been substantiated.

Following the ambush of April 9 the IDF changed tactics and began bombardment with tanks and missiles, and demolished parts of the camp using armoured bulldozers. The report says ''"Witness testimonies and human rights investigations allege that the destruction was both disproportionate and indiscriminate, some houses coming under attack from the bulldozers before their inhabitants had the opportunity to evacuate."''

According to the report, supplies of food and water were delivered to the camp starting on April 16th but this was impeded by the large amounts of explosives present. Negotiations began to bring in specialist equipment and workers to remove the explosives, but in the several weeks it took to negotiate the entry of these teams, at least two Palestinians were killed in explosions.

=== Human Rights Watch report ===
{{seealso|Criticism of Human Rights Watch#Battle of Jenin}}
The ] report found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF". The report agreed with the total casualty figures provided by the IDF but documented a higher proportion of civilian casualties. Amnesty International concurred. The HRW report documented instances of unlawful or willful killing by the IDF, some of which could have been avoided if proper procedures were followed, as well as instances of summary executions. It also documented use of Palestinians as ']', by the IDF, and prevention of humanitarian organizations from accessing the camp despite the great need. The report concluded: <blockquote>Israeli forces committed serious violations of ], some amounting ] to war crimes. Human Rights Watch found no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in Jenin refugee camp. Ultimately, Human Rights Watch verified the deaths of at least 52 Palestinians, of whom it concluded that at least 27 were suspected to be armed combatants, and at least 22 were civilians.<ref>http://hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/israel0502-01.htm#P49_1774</ref></blockquote>

While focusing mainly on the actions of the IDF, the report also stated that: <blockquote>Palestinian gunmen did endanger Palestinian civilians in the camp by using it as a base for planning and launching attacks, using indiscriminate tactics such as planting improvised explosive devices within the camp, and intermingling with the civilian population during armed conflict, and, in some cases, to avoid apprehension by Israeli forces.</blockquote>

The report notes that: <blockquote>The presence of armed Palestinian militants inside Jenin refugee camp, and the preparations made by those armed Palestinian militants in anticipation of the IDF incursion, does not detract from the IDF's obligation under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians ... Unfortunately, these obligations were not met.</blockquote>

Human Rights Watch also criticized the UN investigation for presenting a "watered-down account of the very serious violations in Jenin," for presenting "competing" claims while drawing "almost no conclusions on the merits of those claims," and for failing to address the "issue of accountability for serious violations that may have been committed, some of which rise to the level of war crimes".<ref> Human Rights Watch. New York: August 2, 2002.</ref>

===Amnesty International===
Amnesty International's report on Jenin and Nablus was issued on November 4, 2002. It did not contain accusations that a massacre had occurred. However, the Amnesty report asserts that war crimes were committed by Israel, stating that unlawful killings occurred; there was a failure to ensure medical or humanitarian relief; demolition of houses and property occurred; water and electricity supplies to civilians were cut; torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in arbitrary detention occurred; and Palestinians civilians were used for military operations or as "human shields."

One section of the Amnesty report which is strongly denied by Israel is the charge that some civilians were not warned before their houses were demolished and that they were buried in the rubble. The IDF claims that it broadcast calls to evacuate, but many residents said that they had not heard or understood the call.

Amnesty International acknowledged Israel's "right and responsibility to take measures to prevent unlawful violence," while re-iterating its obligations to comply with international humanitarian law in doing so.

Amnesty research included reviewing Israeli High Court cases and examining medical records, statements, and video documentation. Delegates conducted numerous interviews. Testimony and other evidence were cross-checked for accuracy. In many cases, Israel did not cooperate with Amnesty, and did not respond to inquiries about fighting in Jenin. Amnesty also says that much of the destruction took place after April 11, the date it argues combat died down.<ref name=AI/>

== Other controversies ==
*A popular video footage of a fake burial procession, shot by an aerial drone on April 28, showed Palestinian pallbearers carrying a green blanket-wrapped "corpse" who was accidentally dropped and then stood up and placed himself back in the blanket.<ref>http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/05/03/jenin.tape/</ref> <ref>http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0204.htm#</ref>

*During the battle, Dr. David Zangen, chief medical officer of the Israeli paratroop unit that was fighting in Jenin, reported that the IDF had worked to keep the local Palestinian hospital open and that Israeli doctors had offered the Palestinians blood for their wounded, who then refused to be given "Jewish blood". Col. Arik Gordin of the IDF Office of Military Spokesmen has stated Israel subsequently flew in 2,000 units of blood from Jordan and arranged 40 more units of blood from the ] (East Jerusalem), which were sent to the ] and ] hospitals, and also facilitated the delivery of 1,800 units of anti-coagulants that had come from Morocco.<ref></ref><ref></ref>


==See also== ==See also==
* '']'' * ''Jenin'', a song by singer/songwriter ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

{{Israeli-Palestinian conflict}}


==References== ==References==
{{reflist|2}} {{reflist|3}}


==External links== ==Bibliography==
{{linkfarm}} {{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite book|title=The Middle East and North Africa 2004|author=Europa Regional Surveys of the World 2004 Series|edition=50th, illustrated|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=978-1-85743-184-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/middleeastnortha50thunse}}
=== Reports by human rights groups, the UN, the IDF and the PA ===
* {{Cite book|title=Cities, war, and terrorism: towards an urban geopolitics|first1=Stephen|last1=Graham|edition=22nd, illustrated|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4051-1575-9}}
* The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
* {{Cite book | publisher = Yedioth Aharonoth Books and Chemed Books | isbn = 965-511-767-7 | pages = 431 | last = Harel | first = Amos |author2=Avi Isacharoff | title = The Seventh War | location = Tel-Aviv | year = 2004|language=he}}
*
* {{Cite book | publisher = Vintage | isbn = 1-4000-7963-2 | pages = 560 | last = Herzog | first = Chaim | author2 = Shlomo Gazit | title = The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East | year = 2005 | url = https://archive.org/details/arabisraeliwarsw0000herz | url-access = registration }}
*
* {{Cite book|title=The new A-Z of the Middle East|first1=Alain|last1=Gresh|first2=Dominique|last2=Vidal|edition=2nd, illustrated|publisher=I.B. Tauris|year=2004|isbn=978-1-86064-326-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newazofmiddleeas0000gres}}
*
* {{Cite book|title=Human Rights Watch World Report, 2003|author=Human Rights Watch|edition=Revised|publisher=Human Rights Watch|year=2003|isbn=978-1-56432-285-2}}
*
* {{Cite book | publisher = Grove Press | isbn = 0-8021-4158-7 | last = Karsh | first = Efraim | author-link=Efraim Karsh | title = Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest | url = https://archive.org/details/arafatswarmanan00kars | url-access = registration | date = October 26, 2004}}
*
* {{Cite book | publisher = Encounter Books | isbn = 1-893554-94-5 | last = Gutmann | first = Stephanie | title = The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy | year = 2005 | url = https://archive.org/details/otherwarisraelis00step }}
* (IDF spokesman's official response to the report)
* {{Cite book|title=The global human right to health: dream or possibility?|first1=Théodore Harney|last1=MacDonald|publisher=Radcliffe Publishing|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84619-201-2}}
*
* {{Cite book|title=Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, Volume 5|first1=Avril|last1=McDonald|first2=H.|last2=Fischer|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2005|isbn=978-90-6704-189-8}}
*
* {{Cite book|title=The road map to nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003|first1=Tanya|last1=Reinhart|author-link1=Tanya Reinhart|edition=Illustrated|publisher=Verso|year=2006|isbn=978-1-84467-076-5}}
* , at Israel's Foreign Ministry website
* {{Cite book|title=Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory|first1=Ahmad H.|last1=Sa'di|first2=Lila|last2=Abu-Lughod|author-link2=Lila Abu-Lughod|edition=Illustrated|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-231-13579-5}}
* {{Cite book|title=Water, power and politics in the Middle East: the other Israeli-Palestinian conflict|first1=Jan|last1=Selby|edition=Illustrated|publisher=I.B. Tauris|year=2003|isbn=978-1-86064-934-9}}
* {{Cite book | publisher = Beacon Press | isbn = 978-0-8070-6907-3 | last = Winslow | first = Philip C. | title = ] | date = September 1, 2008}}
{{Refend}}


===Further reading===
=== Press reports, opinions and articles about Jenin battle ===
* {{Cite book | last = Goldberg | first = Brett | title = A Psalm in Jenin | publisher = Modan Publishing House | year = 2003 | location = Israel | pages = 304 | isbn = 965-7141-03-6}}
Whilst considering these press and news reports, it is important to consider the date. At first, many international newspapers reported the possibility of a massacre, whereas 3-4 weeks on, they often describe the massacre as particularly unlikely.
* {{Cite book | editor-last = Baroud | editor-first = Ramzy Mohammed | title = Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002 | publisher = Cune Press | year = 2003 | location = Seattle, Washington | pages = 256 | isbn = 1-885942-34-6}}


==External links==
* , ] report, June 2002.
* {{Cite conference|publisher=United Nations |title=Report of the Secretary-General on Jenin |access-date=September 22, 2008 |date=June 7, 2002 |url=https://www.un.org/peace/jenin/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080911045522/http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/index.html |archive-date=September 11, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy }}
* , analysis in Azure magazine.
* {{Cite conference | publisher = Amnesty International | title = Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus | access-date = September 21, 2008 | date = November 4, 2002 | url = https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/143/2002 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080929213014/http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/143/2002 | archive-date = September 29, 2008 | url-status = dead | df = mdy-all }}
* '']''
* {{Cite journal | volume = 14, No. 3 (E) | issue = May 2002 | title = Jenin: IDF Military Operations | journal = Human Rights Watch | access-date = September 21, 2008 | url = http://hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/index.htm#TopOfPage | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080914212523/http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/index.htm| archive-date= September 14, 2008 | url-status= live}}
* ]
* Matt Rees, , ], May 13, 2002
*
*
* Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
*
* Jenin War Diary of a Hasidic Soldier - ], ] - Sergeant Major Rami Meir
** , .
** Reprint: , .
* , ] interview with ] militant Tabaat Mardawi (], ])
*
*
*
*

'''Articles from ] and ]'''
* , Peter Beaumont (], ])
* , Suzanne Goldenberg (], ])
* , Ewen MacAskill (], ])
* , Bryan Whitaker (], ])
* , Chris McGreal in Jerusalem and Brian Whitaker (], ])
* , Peter Beaumont in Jenin (], ])

'''Articles from the ]'''
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])

'''Articles from ]'''
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])
* (] ])
*
*
* (] ])
*

=== Published personal accounts ===
The books below present contrasting Israeli and Arab views of the battle.
Each is a collection of personal anecdotes, based on the authors' interviews with eyewitnesses / participants:

'''Israeli Accounts'''
* {{cite book
| last = Goldberg
| first = Brett
| authorlink = Brett Goldberg
| title = A Psalm in Jenin
| publisher = Modan Publishing House
| date = 2003
| location = Israel
| pages = 304
| isbn = 965-7141-03-6 }} is a sketch of the experiences of several Israeli soldiers who participated in the battle (either as combatants or auxiliaries such as field medics), based on their accounts and/or accounts of families and friends, in the case of soldiers who fell in the battle.

'''Arab Accounts'''
* {{cite book
| last = Baroud
| first = Ramzy Mohammed, editor
| authorlink = Ramzy Baroud
| title = Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002
| publisher = Cune Press
| date = January, 2003
| location = Seattle, Washington
| pages = 256
| url = http://www.cunepress.net/Book/?GCOI=88594100573750
| isbn = 1885942346 }} is a series of interviews with Arab children and adults who either hid during the battle, or who worked during the battle (such as a Red Crescent ambulance driver,) and describe what they saw and felt. None of the interviewees admit to having fought in the battle.

=== Related issues to Jenin battle ===
* Jenin - center of ]
**
**
**
* Photos of fake funeral in Jenin
** (original link, not working)
** (reprint + video)
*
*
* Muhammed Bakri's film '']''
* Film by Pierre Rehov, intended in part to expose alleged "propaganda and misinformation spread by Bakri".
*


{{Israeli-Palestinian Conflict}} {{Israeli-Palestinian Conflict}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenin}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Jenin 2002}}
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Latest revision as of 18:17, 4 January 2025

Battle of the Second Intifada Not to be confused with Battle of Jenin (1948).

Battle of Jenin
Part of Operation Defensive Shield and the Second Intifada

Aerial photograph of the battle area in Jenin, taken two days after the battle ended
DateApril 1–11, 2002 (Israeli troop withdrawal began April 18)
LocationJenin, Israeli-occupied West Bank
Result Israeli victory
Belligerents

 Israel

Palestinian Authority Fatah

Hamas Hamas
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Independent Palestinian mujahid factions
Commanders and leaders
Yehuda Yedidya
Eyal Shlein
Ofek Buchris
Hazem Qabha  
Zakaria Zubeidi
Mahmoud Tawalbe  
Strength
1 reserve infantry brigade
2 regular infantry battalions
Commando teams
12 D9 armored bulldozers
Some 200 – several hundreds
Casualties and losses
23 dead
52 wounded
52 dead (at least 27 militants and 22 civilians) per HRW
53 dead (48 militants and 5 civilians) per the IDF
Dozens of houses destroyed according to the IDF
according to HRW at least 140 buildings completely destroyed, severe damage caused 200 additional buildings rendered uninhabitable or unsafe.
Second Intifada

Lists

The Battle of Jenin, took place in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on April 1–11, 2002. The Israeli military invaded the camp, and other areas under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, during the Second Intifada, as part of Operation Defensive Shield.

Israeli forces employed infantry, commando forces, and assault helicopters. Palestinian militants had prepared for a fight, booby trapping locations throughout the camp, and after an Israeli column walked into an ambush, the army began to rely more heavily on the use of armored bulldozers. On April 11, Palestinian militants began to surrender. Israeli troops began withdrawing from the camp on April 18.

Despite reports of a widespread massacre numbering hundreds of casualties by some Palestinian officials, subsequent investigations found no evidence to substantiate it, and official totals from Palestinian and Israeli sources confirmed between 52 and 54 Palestinians, including civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers as having been killed in the fighting. Israel did not allow emergency workers into the camp after the battle with Palestinian militants had ended, drawing condemnation from a UN envoy. The battle led to widespread destruction of the camp, as at least 140 buildings were completely destroyed, and severe damage was caused to 200 additional buildings rendered uninhabitable or unsafe.

Naming

According to Palestinian writer Ramzy Baroud, the event is "known by many as the Jenin massacre".

Background

The Jenin refugee camp was established in 1953 within Jenin's municipal boundaries on land that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) leased from the government of Jordan, who at the time ruled the West Bank until 1967. Covering an area of 0.423 square kilometers, in 2002, it was home to 13,055 UNRWA registered Palestinian refugees. Most of the camp's residents originally hail from the Carmel mountains and region of Haifa, and many maintain close ties with their relatives inside the Green Line. Other camp residents include Palestinians from Gaza and Tulkarm who moved into the area in the late 1970s, and those who came from Jordan after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Camp militants repelled attempts by PA seniors to exercise authority in the camp. In a February 2002 show of force, residents burned seven vehicles that were sent by the governor of Jenin and opened fire on the PA men. Ata Abu Rumeileh was designated the chief security officer of the camp by its residents. He oversaw access to the entrances to the camp, instituted roadblocks, investigated "suspicious characters" and kept unwanted strangers away.

Known to Palestinians as "the martyrs' capital", the camp's militants, some 200 armed men, included members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Tanzim, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas. By Israel's count, at least 28 suicide bombers were dispatched from the Jenin camp from 2000 to 2003 during the Second Intifada. One of the key planners for several of the attacks was Mahmoud Tawalbe, who worked in a record store while also heading the local PIJ cell. Israeli army weekly Bamahane attributes at least 31 militant attacks, totaling 124 victims, to Jenin during the same period, more than any other city in the West Bank.

Prior to the undertaking of the Israeli operation the IDF Spokesman attributed 23 suicide bombings and 6 attempted bombings against civilians in Israel to Palestinians from Jenin. Major attacks and suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinian militant groups from Jenin included the Matza restaurant suicide bombing, a Palestinian suicide bombing of an Israeli Arab-owned restaurant in Haifa, Israel which has been called a massacre and resulted in the deaths of 16 Israeli civilians, and over 40 more civilians being injured.

Prelude

Days prior, a suicide bombing attack on a Passover celebration in Netanya resulted in at least 30 casualties and 140 wounded. Israel's Operation Defensive Shield began on March 29 with an incursion into Ramallah, followed by Tulkarem and Qalqilya on April 1, Bethlehem on April 2, and Jenin and Nablus on April 3. By this date, six Palestinian cities and their surrounding towns, villages, and refugee camps, had been occupied by the IDF.

Limited Israeli forces had entered the camp along a single route twice in the previous month; they encountered heavy resistance and quickly withdrew. Unlike other camps, the organizations in Jenin had a joint commander: Hazem Ahmad Rayhan Qabha, known as "Abu Jandal," an officer in the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces who had fought in Lebanon, served in the Iraqi Army, and who had been involved in several encounters with the IDF. He set up a war room and divided the camp into fifteen sub-sectors, deploying about twenty armed men in each. During the battle, he began calling himself "The Martyr Abu Jandal".

After an IDF action in Ramallah in March resulted in television broadcast footage that was considered unflattering, the IDF high command decided not to allow reporters to join the forces. Like other cities targeted in Defensive Shield, Jenin was declared a "closed military zone" and placed under curfew before the entrance of Israeli troops, remaining sealed off throughout the invasion. Water and electricity supplies to the city were also cut off and remained unavailable to residents throughout.

Booby-trapping of homes and buildings

Since the previous Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian militants had prepared by boobytrapping both the town and camp's streets in a bid to trap Israeli soldiers. Following his surrender to Israeli forces, Thabet Mardawi, an Islamic Jihad fighter, said that Palestinian fighters had spread "between 1000 and 2000 bombs and booby traps" throughout the camp, some big ones for tanks (weighing as much as 113 kilograms), most others the size of water bottles. "Omar the Engineer", a Palestinian bombmaker, said that some 50 homes were booby trapped: "We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them." More powerful bombs with remote detonators were placed inside trash bins in the street and inside the cars of wanted men. Omar said that everyone in the camp, including children, knew where the explosives were located, and noted that this constituted a major weakness to their defenses, since during the Israeli incursion, the wires to more than a third of the bombs were cut by soldiers guided by Palestinian collaborators.

Evacuation orders and start of fighting

According to Efraim Karsh, before the fighting started, the IDF used loudspeakers broadcasting in Arabic to urge the locals to evacuate the camp, and he estimates that some 11,000 left. Stephanie Gutmann also said that the IDF used bullhorns and announcements in Arabic to inform the residents of the invasion, and that the troops massed outside the camp for a day because of rain. She estimated that 1,200 remained in the camp, but that it was impossible to tell how many of them were fighters. After the battle, Israeli intelligence estimated that half the population of noncombatants had left before the invasion, and 90% had done so by the third day, leaving around 1,300 people. Others estimated that 4,000 people had remained in the camp. Some camp residents reported hearing the Israeli calls to evacuate, while others said they did not. Many thousands did leave the camp, with women and children usually permitted to move into the villages in the surrounding hills or the neighbouring city. However, the men who left were almost all temporarily detained. Instructed by Israeli soldiers to strip before they were taken away, journalists who entered Jenin following the invasion remarked that heaps of discarded clothing in the ruined streets showed where they were taken into custody.

As the fighting started, Ali Safouri, a commander of the Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades in the camp, said: "We have prepared unexpected surprises for the enemy. We are determined to pay him back double, and teach him a lesson he will not forget. ... We will attack him on the home front, in Jerusalem, in Haifa, and in Jaffa, everywhere. We welcome them, and we have prepared a special graveyard in the Jenin camp for them. We swore on the martyrs that we would place a curfew on the Zionist cities and avenge every drop of blood spilled upon our sacred land. We call on the soldiers of Sharon to refuse his orders, because entering the camp... the capital of the martyrs' , will, Allah willing, be the last thing they do in their lives".

The Israeli command sent in three thrusts consisting mainly of the reservist 5th Infantry Brigade from the town of Jenin to the north, as well as a company of the Nahal Brigade from the southeast and Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade from the southwest. The force of 1,000 troops also included Shayetet 13 and Duvdevan Unit special forces, the Armored Corps, and Combat Engineering Corps with armored bulldozer for neutralizing the roadside bombs that would line the alleys of the camp according to Military Intelligence. The 5th Infantry Brigade did not have any experience in close quarters combat and did not have a commander when Operation Defensive Shield started, since the last commander's service ended a few days earlier. His substitute was a reserve officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yehuda Yedidya, who got his rank after the operation began. His soldiers were not trained for urban fighting. Anticipating the heaviest resistance in Nablus, IDF commanders sent two regular infantry brigades there, assuming they could take over the Jenin camp in 48–72 hours with just the one reservist brigade. The force's entry was delayed until April 2 due to rain and delays with transporting equipment.

Battle

Israeli soldiers in Jenin
A wounded Israeli soldier being evacuated

Israeli forces entered Jenin on April 2. On the first day, reserve company commander Major Moshe Gerstner was killed in a PIJ sector. This caused a further delay. By April 3, the city was secured, but the fighting in the camp was just beginning. Israeli sources say that the IDF incursion into the camp relied primarily on infantry to minimize civilian casualties, but interviews with eyewitnesses suggest that tanks and helicopters were also used in the first two days. Captured Palestinian fighters subsequently told their interrogators that they had anticipated greater use of Israeli air power, not expecting the Israelis to risk heavier casualties in house-to-house fighting. Ata Abu Roumileh, a Fatah leader in the camp, later said that it was only when his forces saw the Israelis advancing on foot that they decided to stay and fight. Thabet Mardawi recalled that "I couldn't believe it when I saw the soldiers. The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed.

An Israeli tank in Jenin

To reach the camp, a Caterpillar D-9 armored bulldozer drove along a three-quarter-mile stretch of the main street to clear it of booby traps. An Israeli Engineering Corps officer logged 124 separate explosions set off by the bulldozer.

Israeli soldiers occupying a building during the fighting

On the third day, the Palestinians were still dug in, defying Israeli expectations, and by then seven Israeli soldiers had been killed. Mardawi later testified to having killed two of them from close range, using an M-16. As the IDF advanced, the Palestinians fell back to the heavily defended camp center – the Hawashin district. AH-1 Cobra helicopters were used to strike Palestinian positions on rooftops using wire-guided missiles, and about a dozen armored D-9 bulldozers were deployed, widening alleys, clearing paths for tanks, and detonating booby traps. Palestinians said that Israeli troops rode atop the bulldozers and fired rocket propelled grenades.

Israeli soldiers during operational activity in Jenin

On April 6, Mahmoud Tawalbe and two other militants went into a house so as to get close enough to a tank or armored D-9 bulldozer to plant a bomb. Tawalbe and another militant were killed during the action. A British military expert working in the camp for Amnesty International reported that a D9 driver saw him, and subsequently rammed a wall down onto him and one of his fighters. The Islamic Jihad website announced that Tawalbe had died when he blew up in his booby-trapped home on the Israeli soldiers inside it, and that he "had thwarted all attempts by the occupation to evacuate the camp residents to make it easier for the Israelis to destroy on the heads of the fighters." On that same day, IDF attack helicopters reportedly increased their missile attacks, which slowed but did not cease the next day.

IDF chief of staff (Ramatkal) Shaul Mofaz urged the officers to speed things up. They asked for twenty-four more hours. Mofaz told reporters that the fighting would be complete by the end of the week, April 6. In some of the sectors, the forces were advancing at a rate of fifty meters a day. Israeli intelligence assumed that the vast majority of the camp's residents were still in it. Most commanders argued that this obligated a careful advance for fear of striking civilians, and warned that using excessive force would cost the lives of hundreds of Palestinians. Lieutenant Colonel Ofek Buchris, commander of the 51st Battalion, was left in a minority opinion, saying "We're being humiliated here for four days now". When Mofaz instructed the officers to be more aggressive and fire five antitank missiles at every house before entering, one of them contemplated disobedience. Meanwhile, when asked how long he thought his forces could last given the superiority of the Israeli forces, Abu Jandal said: "No. That's not true. We have the weapon of surprise. We have the weapon of honor. We have the divine weapon, the weapon of Allah who stands at our side. We have weapons that are better than theirs. I am the one with the truth, and I put my faith in Allah, while they put their faith in a tank".

Buchris continued to employ the tactics of softening up enemy resistance with antitank fire and extensive use of bulldozers, developing a method to expose IDF soldiers to less risk: first, a bulldozer would ram the corner of a house, opening a hole, and then an IDF Achzarit troop carrier would arrive to disembark troops into the house, where they would clear it of any militants found inside. Buchris' battalion was advancing faster than the reserve forces, creating a bridgehead within the camp that attracted most of the Palestinian fire. During the first week of fighting, the battalion suffered five casualties. On April 8, the Golani Brigade's commander, Colonel Moshe Tamir, arrived from Nablus. Having crawled with Buchris to the front line, he warned that the fighting style must be changed completely – call in more troops and perhaps take the command out of the reserve brigade's hand. By evening, division commander Brigadier General Eyal Shlein told his men that the mission must be accomplished by 6:00 PM on April 9. Buchris himself was later badly wounded.

At 6:00 AM on April 9, reserve battalion 7020's support company was ordered to form a new line, west of the former one. Its commander, Major Oded Golomb, set out with a force to take a position in a new house. He strayed from the original path, perhaps for tactical considerations, but failed to report to his commander. The force walked into a Palestinian ambush, finding themselves in an inner courtyard surrounded by tall houses (later nicknamed "the bathtub") and under fire from all directions, and were also attacked by a suicide bomber. Rescue forces from the company and the battalion hurried to the location and were attacked with small-arms fire and explosive charges. The exchange of fire went on for several hours.

A reconnaissance aircraft documented much of the fight and the footage was transmitted live and was watched in the Israeli Central Command war room by the high-ranking officers. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed, and the Palestinians managed to snatch three of the bodies and drag them into a nearby house. A rescue force of Shayetet 13 naval commandos under Colonel Ram Rothberg was quickly assembled. Mofaz told Rothberg that negotiation over the bodies might force the IDF to halt the operation and get it in trouble similar to the 2000 Hezbollah cross-border raid. On the edge of the alley leading to "the bathtub", Rothberg questioned the wounded reservists. Finally, the commando force entered the house where the bodies were being held, killed the Palestinian militants in close-range combat, and extracted the bodies. In the afternoon, all Israeli casualties were evacuated from the area. A few hours after the ambush, a Golani Brigade soldier was killed at the edge of the refugee camp. With the loss of fourteen soldiers, it became the deadliest day for the IDF since the end of the 1982 Lebanon War.

During that day, the IDF censored reports on the events, leading to a wave of rumors. Partial information leaked through phone calls made by reservists and internet sites. By evening, when Chief of Central Command, Brigadier General Yitzhak Eitan, had a press conference, there were rumors of a helicopter carrying dozens of troops shot down, the death of the Ramatkal's deputy, and a heart attack suffered by the Minister of Defense.

After the ambush, all Israeli forces began to advance by Buchris' tactics, utilizing armored bulldozers and Achzarit APCs in their push. Israeli forces also relied heavily on increased missile strikes from helicopters. Several officers demanded that F-16 jets be sent to bomb the camp, but the IDF High Command refused. The dozen bulldozers and APCs pushed deep into the heart of the camp, flattening a built-up area of 200 square yards, destroying militant strongpoints.

As the Palestinian fighters' resistance faltered against the sheer force of the Israeli assault and their supplies of food and ammunition dwindled, Israeli troops mopped up the final resistance. At 7:00 AM on April 11, the Palestinians began to surrender. Qabha refused to surrender and was killed, being among the last to die. Most of the Palestinian fighters were either killed or captured. Some managed to escape the city and slip through the ring of Israeli troops and tanks around it. Among them was Zakaria Zubeidi who moved through the houses and left. Mardawi surrendered along with Ali Suleiman al-Saadi, known as "Safouri", and thirty-nine others. He later said that "There was nothing I could do against that bulldozer".

Battle aftermath

An Israeli soldier at the end of the battle on the eve of the IDF's withdrawal from Jenin
Aerial photograph of the area demolished in the Jenin camp's central Hawashin district.

The battle ended on April 11. Medical teams from Canada, France, and Italy, as well as UN and ICRC officials, with trucks carrying supplies and water waited outside the camp for clearance to enter for days, but were denied entry, with Israel citing ongoing military operations. The first independent observers were granted access to the camp on April 16. Israeli troops began withdrawing from the camp itself on April 18. Tanks ringed the perimeter of the camp for a few more days, but by April 24, Israeli troops had withdrawn from the autonomous zone of Jenin.

Removal of bodies

The IDF announced that it would not withdraw its troops from the Jenin camp until it had collected the bodies of the Palestinian dead. The army would not confirm Palestinian reports that military trucks had removed dozens of bodies, nor would it comment on whether or not burials had taken place.

According to Haaretz, some of the bodies had already been removed from the camp by soldiers to a site near Jenin on April 11, but had not yet been buried. Palestinians allegedly buried others during the battle in a mass grave near the hospital on the outskirts of the camp. On the evening of April 11, Israeli television showed footage of refrigerator trucks waiting outside the camp to transfer bodies to "terrorist cemeteries". On April 12, Haaretz reported that

"The IDF intends to bury today Palestinians killed in the West Bank camp ... The sources said two infantry companies, along with members of the military rabbinate, will enter the camp today to collect bodies. Those who can be identified as civilians will be moved to a hospital in Jenin, and then on to burial, while those identified as terrorists will be buried at a special cemetery in the Jordan Valley."

The same day, in response to a petition presented by the Adalah organization, the Israeli High Court ordered the IDF to stop removing the bodies of Palestinians killed in battle until after a hearing on the matter. MK Ahmed Tibi, one of many signatories to the petition before the court, said that removing the bodies from the city violated international law and was "intended to hide the truth from the public about the killing that occurred there". Following the court's decision, issued by Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, the IDF stopped clearing the bodies from the camp. It was reported that by the afternoon of April 13, the IDF had determined the location of 23 bodies in the camp which were marked on maps. On April 14, the Supreme Court reversed its decision, and ruled that the IDF could remove the bodies. IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz confirmed to Israeli media on April 14 that the army intended to bury the bodies in the special cemetery.

On April 15 humanitarian aid organizations were granted access to the camp for the first time since the invasion had begun. Palestinian Red Crescent Society and International Committee of the Red Cross staff entered the camp, accompanied by the IDF. Officials from the Red Crescent told lawyer Hassan Jabareen that the IDF did not allow them to move around the camps freely, and that advanced decomposition, as well as the enormous destruction in the camp, made it impossible to find and retrieve bodies without the proper equipment. That same day Adalah and LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, filed a petition asking the Court to order the IDF to immediately hand over the bodies of Palestinians to the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, saying that the bodies of dead Palestinians were being left to rot in the camp. On April 19, a day after Israeli troops withdrew from the camp, journalists reported counting about 23 bodies that were lined up on the outdoor grounds of the clinic, before being quickly buried by Palestinians.

Tanya Reinhart notes that later Israeli media reports attempted to conceal and reinterpret their intention to transfer the bodies to the special cemetery in the Jordan Valley. As an example, she cites a July 17, 2002 article by Ze'ev Schiff in Haaretz which provided a wholly different explanation for the presence of the refrigerator trucks posted outside the city on April 11. Schiff's article said: "Toward the end of the fighting, the army sent three large refrigerator trucks into the city. Reservists decided to sleep in them for their air-conditioning. Some Palestinians saw dozens of covered bodies lying in the trucks and rumors spread that the Jews had filled the trucks full of Palestinian bodies."

Invasion aftermath

Military analyses

The Israelis said they found explosive-making labs and factories for assembling Qassam II rockets. One Israeli special forces commander who fought in the camp said that "the Palestinians were admirably well prepared. They correctly analyzed the lessons of the previous raid". Mardawi told CNN from prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, "It was like hunting ... like being given a prize. ... The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed. ... I've been waiting for a moment like that for years".

General Dan Harel, Head of the IDF Operations Directorate, said "There were indications it was going to be hard, but we didn't think it was going to be so hard". An internal investigation published by the IDF six months after the battle implicitly cast the responsibility for the death of the thirteen soldiers on the soldiers themselves, for straying from their path unreported. It also said that the focusing on the rescue instead of subduing the enemy complicated things. Buchris was given the Chief of Staff citation.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who left the compound in Ramallah for the first time in five months on May 14, 2002 to visit Jenin and other West Bank cities affected in Operation Defensive Shield, praised the refugees' endurance and compared the fighting to the Battle of Stalingrad. Addressing a gathering of about 200 people in Jenin, he said: "People of Jenin, all the citizens of Jenin and the refugee camp, this is Jenin-grad. Your battle has paved the way to the liberation of the occupied territories". The battle became known among the Palestinians as "Jeningrad".

The battle attracted the interest of the US military, which was trying to build a doctrine for urban warfare as the 2003 invasion of Iraq loomed. US military observers were sent to study the fighting. US officers dressed in IDF uniforms were reportedly present during the final stages of the battle. The United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory studied the battle, and a Joint Chiefs of Staff delegation was sent to Israel to make changes to US Marine Corps doctrine based on the battle.

Damages

The BBC reported that ten percent of the camp was "virtually rubbed out by a dozen armoured Israeli bulldozers." David Holley, a Major in the British Territorial Army and a military adviser to Amnesty International, reported that an area within the refugee camp of about 100 m by 200 m was flattened. According to Stephen Graham, the IDF had systematically bulldozed an area measuring 160 by 250 m in the Jenin refugee camp. The Hawashin neighbourhood was levelled. Many residents had no advance warning, and some were buried alive.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) reported that an estimated 4,000 people, more than a quarter of the population of the camp, were rendered homeless because of this destruction. HRW listed 140 buildings, most of which housed multiple families, as completely destroyed, and 200 other buildings as sustaining damage rendering them uninhabitable or unsafe for use. AI said complete destruction affected 164 houses with 374 apartment units, and that other buildings had been partially destroyed. Israel said those numbers were exaggerations.

On May 31, 2002, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published an interview with Moshe Nissim, nicknamed "Kurdi Bear", a D-9 operator who took part in the battle. Nissim said he had driven his D-9 for seventy-five hours straight, drinking whiskey to avoid fatigue, and that apart from a two-hour training course before the battle, he had no prior experience in driving a bulldozer. He said he had begged his officers to let him destroy more houses and added:
"I didn't see, with my own eyes, people dying under the blade of the D-9 and I didn't see house falling down on live people. But if there were any, I wouldn't care at all ...
"But the real thing started the day 13 of our soldiers were killed up that alley in the Jenin refugee camp.
"If we had moved into the building where they were ambushed, we would have buried all those Palestinians alive.
"I kept thinking of our soldiers. I didn't feel sorry for all those Palestinians who were left homeless. I just felt sorry for their children, who were not guilty. There was one wounded child, who was shot by Arabs. A Golani paramedic came down and changed his bandages, till he was evacuated. We took care of them, of the children. The soldiers gave them candy. But I had no mercy for the parents of these children. I remembered the picture on television, of the mother who said she will bear children so that they will explode in Tel Aviv. I asked the Palestinian women I saw there: 'Aren't you ashamed?'"

Casualties

See also: Israeli casualties of war and Palestinian casualties of war

Reporting of casualty numbers during the invasion varied widely and fluctuated day to day. On April 10, the BBC reported that Israel estimated 150 Palestinians had died in Jenin, and Palestinians were saying the number was far higher. That same day, Saeb Erekat, on a phone interview to CNN from Jericho, estimated that there were a total of 500 Palestinians killed during Operation Defensive Shield, this figure also including fatalities outside of the Jenin camp, in other areas of the West Bank. On April 11, Ben Wedeman of CNN reported that Palestinians were reporting 500 dead, while international relief agencies were saying possibly as many as 200; he noted that his efforts to independently verify the claims had so far come to naught since people were being prevented from entering the camp by Israeli soldiers.

On April 12, Brigadier-General Ron Kitri said on Army Radio that there were apparently hundreds of Palestinians killed in Jenin. He later retracted this statement. Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, said that thousands of Palestinians had been killed and buried in mass graves, or lay under houses destroyed in Jenin and Nablus. On April 13, Palestinian Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accused Israel of killing 900 Palestinians in the camp and burying them in mass graves. On April 14, Haaretz reported that the exact number of Palestinian dead was still unknown, but that the IDF placed the toll between 100 and 200. On April 18, Zalman Shoval, adviser to Sharon, said that only about 65 bodies had been recovered, five of them civilians. On April 30, Qadoura Mousa, director of the Fatah for the northern West Bank, said the number of dead was 56.

Based on figures provided by the Jenin hospital and the IDF, the UN report placed the Palestinian death toll at 52 Palestinian, around half of whom were thought to be civilians. In 2004, Haaretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff wrote that 23 Israeli soldiers had died and 52 had been wounded; Palestinian casualties were 53 dead, hundreds wounded and about 200 captured. Human Rights Watch reported that at least 52 Palestinians died of whom at least 22 were civilians and at least 27 were suspected militants, and that it was unable to conclusively determine the status of the remaining three. According to retired IDF General Shlomo Gazit, the death toll was 55 Palestinians. Israeli officials estimated that 52 Palestinians were killed: 38 armed men and 14 civilians.

IDF and Israeli government sources reported that 23 Israeli soldiers were killed and 75 wounded. The UN report also noted that 23 IDF soldiers had been killed. The only exception was retired IDF General Shlomo Gazit, who initially said that 33 soldiers had died in Jenin. This contradicted not only most IDF and other sources, but also IDF figures of 30 Israeli deaths total in Operation Defensive Shield.

Massacre allegations

The battle attracted widespread international attention due to allegations by Palestinians that a massacre had been committed. Reporters from various international media outlets quoted local residents who described houses being bulldozed with families still inside, helicopters firing indiscriminately into civilian areas, ambulances being prevented from reaching the wounded, summary executions of Palestinians, and stories of bodies being driven away in trucks or left in the sewers and bulldozed. Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister, accused the Israelis of trying to cover up the killing of civilians. The CNN correspondent noted that due to the IDF closure of the camp, there was "no way of confirming" the stories. During and immediately after the battle, the United Nations and several human rights NGOs also expressed concern about the possibility of a massacre. A British forensic expert who was part of an Amnesty International team granted access to Jenin on April 18 said, "the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."

Israel denied charges of a massacre, and a lone April 9 report in the Israeli press stating Foreign Minister Shimon Peres privately referred to the battle as a "massacre" was immediately followed by a statement from Peres expressing concern that "Palestinian propaganda is liable to accuse Israel that a 'massacre' took place in Jenin rather than a pitched battle against heavily armed terrorists."

Subsequent investigations and reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Time magazine, and the BBC all concluded there was no massacre of civilians, with estimated death tolls of 46–55 people among reports by the IDF, the Jenin office of the United Nations, and the Jenin Hospital. A team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reporting to Fatah numbered total casualties of 56, as disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank.

The UN report to the Secretary General noted "Palestinians had claimed that between 400 and 500 people had been killed, fighters and civilians together. They had also claimed a number of summary executions and the transfer of corpses to an unknown place outside the city of Jenin. The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55." While noting the number of civilian deaths might rise as rubble was cleared, the report continued, "nevertheless, the most recent estimates by UNRWA and ICRC show that the number of missing people is constantly declining as the IDF releases Palestinians from detention." Human Rights Watch completed its report on Jenin in early May, stating "there was no massacre," but accusing the IDF of war crimes, and Amnesty International's report concluded "No matter whose figures one accepts, "there was no massacre." Amnesty's report specifically observed that "after the IDF temporarily withdrew from Jenin refugee camp on April 17, UNRWA set up teams to use the census lists to account for all the Palestinians (some 14,000) believed to be resident of the camp on April 3, 2002. Within five weeks all but one of the residents was accounted for." A BBC report later noted, "Palestinian authorities made unsubstantiated claims of a wide-scale massacre," and a reporter for The Observer opined that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre.

War crimes allegations

At the same time, Human rights organizations and some media reports charged Israel with war crimes. Human Rights Watch reported that of the Palestinians killed, "many of them were killed willfully or unlawfully, and in some cases constituted war crimes." Examples included the case of 57-year-old Kamal Zugheir who was shot and then run over by IDF tanks while in his wheelchair, and that of 37-year-old Jamal Fayid, a quadraplegic crushed to death in the rubble of his home after an IDF bulldozer advanced upon it, refusing to allow his family to intervene to remove him. It also documented the killing of a Palestinian militant who had already been wounded. In November, Amnesty International reported that there was "clear evidence" that the IDF committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians, including unlawful killings and torture, in Jenin and Nablus. The report also accused Israel of blocking medical care, using people as human shields and bulldozing houses with residents inside, as well as beating prisoners, which resulted in one death, and preventing ambulances and aid organizations from reaching the areas of combat even after the fighting had reportedly been stopped. Amnesty criticized the UN report, noting that its officials did not actually visit Jenin. The Observer reporter, Peter Beaumont, wrote that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre, but that the mass destruction of houses was a war crime. Some reports said that Israel's restriction of access to Jenin and refusal to allow the UN investigation access to the area were evidence of a coverup, a charge echoed by Mouin Rabbani, Director of the Palestinian American Research Center in Ramallah.

On the other side, Israeli media sources and analysts suggested media bias and propaganda efforts were the source of the allegations. Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari stated, "some correspondents might have been obsessive in their determination to unearth a massacre in a refugee camp". Mohammed Dajani of Al-Quds University said that the Palestinian Authority wanted "to turn Jenin into an 'Alamo episode'. Here the press was a willing partner they aspired to make Jenin a symbol of resistance to Palestinians". In May 2009, the IDF released a videotape showing what it called "a phony funeral that the Palestinians organized in order to multiply the number of casualties in Jenin," wherein a live person is wrapped in a green sheet and marched in a procession. LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights, held a press conference on May 8, disputing the conclusions drawn by Israel. LAW stated that Mohammad Bakri who was in Jenin on April 28, making his documentary film Jenin, Jenin, shot the same footage from the ground, and that it shows a group of children playing "funeral" near the cemetery. LAW added that, "The media uncritically took up the Israeli spokesmen conclusions, without investigating what the footage actually shows."

Harel and Issacharoff wrote that the IDF's misconduct with the media, including Kitri's statement, contributed to the allegations of massacre. Mofaz later admitted that the limitations imposed on the media were a mistake. Head of the Operations Directorate, General Dan Harel, said: "Today, I would send a reporter in every APC". IDF Spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said the decision not to allow reporters into the camp was a difficult one: "The press people said 'Listen, the journalists aren't going to like it' and the operational people said 'We don't care about the journalists right now and about our image, we don't want them inside.' It had to do with the way we were working operationally inside the camp. We had infantry coming in from 360 degrees which means that you're firing in all different directions. It's not like a journalist can be on one side or another. It's a very difficult type of combat to coordinate with the forces, let alone with somebody you don't know who's inside."

In Pierre Rehov's documentary The Road to Jenin, a Palestinian doctor claimed that on the second day, the city's hospital was hit by eleven tank shells. However, in both Rehov's film and Richard Landes's 2005 film Pallywood, the supposed hits shown on Jenin hospital were compared to an actual building hit by Merkava tank shelling, suggesting that the supposed hit marks were staged.

Lorenzo Cremonesi, the correspondent for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in Jerusalem, writes in a 2009 article, that he slipped past the army barricades and entered the Jenin camp on April 13, 2002. He says the hospital was almost deserted as doctors played cards in the emergency room and that he spoke to 25 lightly wounded patients who told heartrending stories but when asked for names of the dead and urged to show where the bodies were, became evasive. "In short, it was all talk and nothing could be verified," wrote Cremonesi. "At the end of that day, I wrote that the death toll was not more than 50 and most of them were combatants". Cremonesi criticized Israel's exclusion of the media from Jenin and from Gaza during the 2009 war, saying, "If you hide something from me, that means first and foremost that you want to hide it, and secondly, that you have done something wrong."

UN fact-finding mission

On April 18, as Israeli troops began pulling out of Jenin and Nablus, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen entered the camp. He told reporters that the devastation was, "horrific beyond belief," and relayed his view that it was "morally repugnant" that Israel had not allowed emergency workers into the camp after the battle with Palestinian gunmen had ended. On April 19, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1405 to send a fact-finding mission to Jenin. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, that Israel would welcome a UN official "to clarify the facts", saying "Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in Jenin. Our hands are clean". Abed Rabbo said the mission was, "the first step toward making Sharon stand trial before an international tribunal".

The composition of the fact-finding team was announced on April 22. Led by former Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, the other two members were Cornelio Sommaruga, former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (controversial in Israel for previous "Red Swastika" remarks), and Sadako Ogata, the former UN high commissioner for refugees who was Japan's special envoy on Afghan reconstruction.

Official Israeli sources expressed surprise that they were not consulted as to the composition of the team, adding that, "We expected that the operational aspects of the fact-finding mission would be carried out by military experts." On April 22, Israeli Defense Minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer expressed his disappointment at the team's make-up, and his hope that the mission would not overstep its mandate. Peres asked Annan to deny reports that the mission would look into events outside the refugee camp, and that the findings would have legal validity. Annan said the findings would not be legally binding, and that the mission would only investigate events inside the camp, but may have to interview residents currently displaced outside.

On April 23, Gideon Saar, the cabinet secretary, threatened to ban the team from entering Jenin. In private discussions, Giora Eiland, Major General and Head of the IDF Operation Branch, convinced Shaul Mofaz that the team would ask to investigate officers and soldiers, and that it might accuse Israel of war crimes, paving the way for the sending of an international force. Sharon accepted Eiland and Mofaz's position, and announced Israel's decision that the UN team was no longer acceptable on April 24, citing the lack of military experts. The US rebuked Sharon's decision, and a White House official said, "We were the sponsors of that and we want it implemented as written. We support the initiative of the secretary general."

Annan initially refused to delay the mission. Expressing Israeli sentiment that the world ignored its victims, Ben-Eliezer said: "In the last month alone, 137 people were slaughtered by Palestinians and nearly 700 wounded. Is there any one who is investigating that?" Saeb Erekat accused Israel of "trying to sabotage the mission. I believe that they have a big thing to hide." On April 25, the UN agreed to postpone the arrival of the team by two days, and acceded to an Israeli request that two military officers be added to the team. Annan said talks with Israel had been, "very, very constructive and I'm sure we'll be able to sort out our differences". Peres said that a delay would give the Israeli cabinet the opportunity to discuss the mission before the team arrived.

Avi Pazner, an Israeli Government spokesman, said he expected the UN mission to investigate "terrorist activity" and guarantee immunity for Israeli soldiers. Israel Radio reported that Israel was also pushing for the right for both sides to review the team's report before its presentation to Annan. Following a lengthy cabinet meeting on April 28, Reuven Rivlin, the Israeli Communications Minister, told reporters that the UN had reneged on its agreements with Israel over the team, and so it would not be allowed to arrive. Speaking for the cabinet, he said that the composition of the team and its terms of reference made it inevitable that its report would blame Israel.

The UN Security Council convened the following day to discuss Israel's decision not to grant entry to the UN team. Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby in Washington was called to pressure Annan and George W. Bush. On April 30, Annan urged that the UN team, which had been waiting in Geneva to start its mission, be disbanded, and it was on May 2. On May 4, Israel was isolated in an open debate in the Security Council. The deputy US ambassador to the UN, James Cunningham, said it was "regrettable" Israel had decided not to cooperate with the fact-finding team. Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the UN, said the council failed to give Annan its full support, and had caved to "blackmailing" by the Israeli Government. The General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Israel's military action in Jenin by 74 votes to four, with 54 abstentions. The Bush administration supported Israel as part of a deal in which Sharon agreed to lift the siege of the Mukataa in Ramallah.

Reconstruction

In the aftermath of the invasion, many camp residents ended up living in temporary shelters elsewhere. The camp itself became the site of intense efforts at documenting, recording and expressing the experiences of those displaced and affected by the incursion. In discussing how to properly honor those who had fallen, one proposal suggested leaving the destruction, at least in the Hawashin neighborhood, exactly as it was, as a memorial and testament to struggle and sacrifice. Camp residents, however, insisted that the camp be rebuilt almost exactly as it had been, while also establishing a museum of memory in the Old Hijaz Railway building. They rejected the proposal of the Israeli housing minister to rebuild the camp at a nearby site with enlarged roads, viewing it as an attempt to erase the political reality of the camps whose existence they see as living testaments to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.

See also

References

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Bibliography

Further reading

  • Goldberg, Brett (2003). A Psalm in Jenin. Israel: Modan Publishing House. p. 304. ISBN 965-7141-03-6.
  • Baroud, Ramzy Mohammed, ed. (2003). Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002. Seattle, Washington: Cune Press. p. 256. ISBN 1-885942-34-6.

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