Palestinians add bodies from local cemetery to inflate number killed in Jenin

Jenin 'massacre' reduced to death toll of 56

Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp are inflating the number of residents killed during Operation Defensive Shield by adding bodies of residents buried in a local cemetery to a mass grave that contains the bodies of 26 residents killed in the IDF operation, the army said yesterday.

The IDF Spokesman said that Palestinians had begun removing bodies from a cemetery located near the government hospital in the camp to the mass grave, bringing the total number of bodies to 50. In addition, PA officials have instructed residents to refrain from searching for additional bodies buried under rubble in the camp and wait and do so in the presence of the UN fact-finding team due to arrive there.

According to the army, Palestinian officials have paid residents left homeless to rent accommodations in Jenin, but have demanded that they return to the camp and be present during the day when UN personnel visit. Residents have also refrained from repairing structures damaged in the camp, at the request of PA officials. They have been instructed to erase any militant symbols and hide weapons, and refrain from taking any militant action while the UN teams are present.

The army noted that 70 camp residents who were present in the camp during the IDF operation and were unharmed have said they will refrain from going to the camp or carrying out any militant activities until the UN team leaves the area.

The IDF noted that since its pullout from the camp, 21 innocent residents have been wounded by explosive devices planted by Palestinian terrorists during the IDF operation. In addition, residents protesting US support for Israel have refused to accept American aid packages delivered to the camp.

A senior Hamas official in the Jenin refugee camp, Jamal Abdel Salam Heija, declared the movement would continue "resisting the Israeli occupation." Heija told Reuters "if the Israelis believe they eradicated the terrorist infrastructure of resistance here, they are wrong. Despite our losses, it will rise from these ashes stronger then ever before."

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The official Palestinian body count, which is not disproportionate to the 33 Israeli soldiers killed in the incursion, was disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank, after a team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reported to him in his Jenin office.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested yesterday, in the wake of the Palestinian body count, that he may disband a U.N. fact-finding team that was to visit the camp to determine whether a massacre had taken place. Mr. Annan was responding to a decision by the Israeli security Cabinet earlier in the day not to cooperate with the U.N. team.

The U.N.-Israeli dispute appeared unrelated to the Palestinian admission there had been no massacre. The Palestinians had suggested that most of the bodies were buried beneath the rubble of houses bulldozed by Israeli troops. No digging for bodies was taking place here, and there was no stench that could have come from decaying human flesh.

The earlier Palestinian claims had sparked international outrage and prompted the Bush administration to press Israel to accept a fact-finding mission by the United Nations, an organization that the Jewish state regards as having a pro-Palestinian bias. Mr. Kadoura yesterday showed a reporter for The Washington Times the official Palestinian list of those who died. It contained 50 names. Six additional bodies, he said, had not been identified He no longer used the ubiquitous Palestinian charge of "massacre" and instead portrayed the battle as a "victory" for Palestinians in resisting Israeli forces.

The propaganda war continues, meanwhile, in the refugee camp itself. Families whose homes had been destroyed were ordered to sit and lie inside tents pitched near the destruction, to be available for interviews and filming with foreign reporters and photographers. At dusk, with the press opportunities concluded, they returned to houses offered to them in the undamaged city or in the rest of the refugee camp.