Summary of Events
In Jenin the IDF entered the refugee camp from all sides but the largest IDF
incursion appeared to be in the al-Damaj area during 3 April 2002. IDF
soldiers then proceeded through the Jurrat al-Dahab area of the camp and
finally into the Hawashin district. This pattern of movement is consistent
with the path of destruction visible in the camp. IDF troops often used
bulldozers to widen the alleyways, shaving off the outside walls of houses to
allow the passage of tanks and other military vehicles through the narrow
roads of the camp. The fighting was the most intense between 3 and 9 April.
The IDF broadcast calls to evacuate but many residents said that they had not
heard or understood the call; others said that when they tried to evacuate
they were caught in crossfire and took refuge in their own or other houses.
At various times the IDF called by loudspeaker for all males between the ages
of 15 and 45 to report. Many said they did not dare to leave their homes. The
Palestinian men who were rounded up were mostly forced to strip to their
underwear and marched or driven out to a holding station in Bir Salem for
some days; most were released in outlying villages which they were told not
to leave. The IDF told women who were rounded up to leave the camp.
During the earlier March incursions into refugee camps the IDF entered Jenin
refugee camp with very little resistance from members of armed Palestinian
groups; this time, a member of Fatah told Amnesty International researchers,
they had decided to resist the IDF invasion.
"The decision to stand and fight was made by the community after what
happened in March. And otherwise, where would we go? The Israelis had put a
cordon around the town; we had no choice. We had nowhere else to fight."
There were about 120-150 fighters, most but not all armed with weapons; they
included about 30 members of the Palestinian security forces, mostly the
Preventive Security Service, who were members of Tanzim, the armed wing of
Fatah. Members of armed groups told Amnesty International that women brought
food to fighters and children ran messages.
In the refugee camp, the IDF moved from house to house, searching for weapons
or members of armed groups. The IDF told Amnesty International that soldiers
treated each of the 1,800 houses in the camp individually, warning people to
leave; if no one came out of a house IDF soldiers would use a loudspeaker
instructing those inside to leave.
Numerous testimonies show that IDF units frequently forced Palestinians to
take part in operations by making a Palestinian camp resident enter a house
first and then search it; they also used Palestinians as "human shields" to
shelter behind. IDF patrols blew open the doors of houses often without
waiting to see whether those inside were going to open them. Houses were
destroyed, sometimes without ensuring that the residents had left.
Palestinian armed groups used empty houses as bases from which to fight and
often laid booby traps as they withdrew to another building. The fighting was
the most intense between 3 and 9 April and especially fierce on 5-6 April.
The armed groups' tactics caused a heavy loss of life amongst the IDF who had
already lost 10 men in Jenin by 9 April, when 13 more soldiers were killed in
a single ambush.
The bulldozing of Palestinian houses by heavy D-9 bulldozers, (which was not
confined to this period) was accelerated after this date. Major-General Giora
Eiland, Head of the IDF Plans and Policy Directorate, told Amnesty
International:
"After seven to eight days, and after 23 dead, we decided to change tactics
and use bulldozers. You bring the bulldozer close to the house, you call on
the people to come out, then you destroy it. … In the last five to six days
we had no casualties. On their way bulldozers had to crush more houses,
because they needed to get through. This was the most humanitarian way to
deal with the situation."
The negotiated surrender to the IDF on 11 April 2002 of some 34 armed
Palestinians surrounded in a building appeared to mark the end of armed
resistance in the camp. Palestinian armed groups told Amnesty International
delegates that after 10 April they tried to hide or leave; some allowed
themselves to be arrested with other men rounded up not involved in fighting.
People in the camp, as well as foreign and local relief workers and
journalists on the perimeters of the camp confirmed that little or no gunfire
could be heard after this date. However, as the aerial photos of the refugee
camp on page 8 show, much of the property destruction (bulldozing of houses)
in the Hawashin area, an area of 400 x 500 metres, was undertaken between 11
and 14 April.
Ambulances of the PRCS and the ICRC were allowed into the refugee camp for
the first time on 15 April 2002 and the IDF blockade was only lifted on 17
April. Most of those camp residents who could had tried to leave the camp
during the invasion; after the blockade was raised they streamed back;
Amnesty International delegates watched dazed Palestinians staring
unbelievingly at the rubble of houses and digging urgently, with bare hands,
to try to rescue anyone buried and still alive.
Amnesty International researchers entered Jenin refugee camp on 17 April,
minutes after the Israeli blockade was lifted. On 14 April one of the
delegates, Derrick Pounder, Professor of Forensic Medicine, had waited
outside the Israeli High Court to see whether access would be granted to
medical organizations. On 15 April the ICRC and the PRCS were allowed for the
first time into the camp. Amnesty International delegates waited for three
hours at Salem checkpoint; when they were allowed through, without any
vehicle, they walked 12 kilometres through a silent countryside, carrying
heavy medical equipment, arriving at dusk to a town under curfew.
Most homes in Jenin city had no electricity and only water which had been
stored. To find electricity to charge their mobile phones delegates risked a
night journey after curfew to a quarter with functioning electricity. On 16
April delegates waited the entire day, their entrance blocked by the IDF,
outside Jenin Public Hospital on the edge of the refugee camp. There they saw
a woman in labour struggling to walk the final 100 metres after the IDF
halted her ambulance. The hospital director told them that bodies of
Palestinians who had been killed lay in piles of earth in the hospital
grounds, but Professor Pounder was not allowed to enter to carry out forensic
examinations.
On the morning of 17 April the IDF blocking entrance to the hospital allowed
Professor Pounder to enter. As the news came through that the Israeli
blockade was lifted, delegates entered Jenin refugee camp. They looked at
Hawashin, a neighbourhood that once housed over 800 families and was now
reduced to rubble. An elderly man stood near the remains of a house at the
areas western edge, calling that his daughter was buried under the rubble.
After the IDF closure and curfew were raised on 17 April 2002, they were
repeatedly reimposed. In June, Dr Kathleen Cavanaugh, an international law
expert and Amnesty International delegate, trying to carry out research in
the few hours when the curfew was lifted, moved from house to house taking
shelter and interviewing residents as she tried to investigate recent
killings of children in Jenin during the curfew. As she was interviewing
eyewitnesses the IDF killed another child breaking the curfew.
Though the IDF offensive against Nablus in April 2002 has not received the
attention of Jenin, there were more Palestinian casualties (80 killed) and
fewer Israeli soldiers killed (four). In the old city the injured lay dying
without medical help in the streets and in homes damaged or demolished by
missiles or bulldozers while the curfew and the blockade remained in force
for some 20 days. Though the scale of house demolition was not equal to the
devastation of Hawashin, many homes and historic buildings were destroyed or
damaged.
The IDF placed a military cordon around Nablus by 3 April. The IDF first
placed snipers in high buildings, mainly concentrated around the old city. As
in Jenin, the IDF began its assault by firing missiles at certain buildings,
but the quantity of missile fire did not appear to have been as high as in
Jenin. Ground troops followed and by 6 April members of armed Palestinian
groups were apparently driven back and concentrated in two main areas of the
old city, al-Yasmina and the Qasbah, with a population of 3,000. Unlike in
Jenin the IDF did not apparently commit large numbers of infantry to fight
house-to-house; this was presumably because the houses of the old city were
more strongly built and not so easy to demolish as in Jenin.
However, a number of homes were damaged by missiles and the IDF demolished
several houses by D-9 bulldozers, on at least two occasions while their
occupants were alive. They made no attempt to check or to rescue them. The
IDF also targeted commercial buildings important to the economy of Nablus:
the soap factory and the Hindiyeh building. There was not the same house to
house fighting as in Jenin and by 11 April most of the fighting had ended and
the IDF had assumed control of the city.
Palestinian armed groups had anticipated the IDF incursion into Nablus, but
found their tactics circumvented by the accuracy of the IDF snipers. Two
Fatah members in Nablus described the situation during the hostilities to
Amnesty International delegates:
"It is difficult to assess how many fighters there were because fighters were
split into two groups: one to lay bombs, the other to fight with rifles;
maybe there were around 400 in all; approximately 60 from the refugee camps.
There was good cooperation between the resistance groups; it was decided to
use bombs only in the beginning of the attack against the Israeli tanks. Once
the tanks had broken into the city and were on the outskirts of the old city,
this took the IDF three days, it was decided to resist with small-arms fire.
"Once the IDF surrounded the old city there were five days of fighting
concentrating in two parts of the old city: the Qasbah and al-Yasmina. The
Israeli soldiers had good street maps and aerial photos of the town, they
seemed to know where to go and what houses to enter and search. The fighting
was very difficult because we did not have good communications and the
Israeli snipers were so accurate: movement in the alleys and streets was
virtually impossible because of the snipers and attacks from helicopters
using missiles.
"There was no order from Ramallah to resist, we decided to do it ourselves
once we saw pictures of the fighting from Ramallah. Groups were concentrated
in their own area of houses each with their own leader but communication
between groups was primitive and difficult. During the first three days of
the fight there was no shooting from our fighters just the use of bombs
against the Israeli tanks. Some fighters tried to supply food and water to
those who had run out but these were easy targets for the snipers: I was
shocked at their accuracy. I also thought that they would never enter the old
city but they did, I don't think we were prepared for this."
As in Jenin the IDF cut water and electricity supplies to most houses. There
appears to have been no general order to evacuate before 10 April, when men
were also told to report for arrest. Some residents were afraid to leave. A
curfew was imposed throughout Nablus, including the refugee camps, from the
first day of the IDF incursion and remained in place until 22 April. Thus the
curfew lasted even longer than in Jenin; families suffered severe hardship as
stocks of food and water diminished and no one dared to venture out for fear
of snipers who targeted anyone in the streets. According to many reports
snipers continued to shoot even when the curfew was lifted. Access to the
hospitals and to dead and wounded in the old city was completely barred
between 3-8 April. Elsewhere, with ambulances unable to move, field hospitals
were set up in mosques or any suitable building. The curfew was lifted on 10
April for a one-hour period and then approximately every 48 hours until 22
April.
While the IDF lifted the internal closure and curfew on 22 April, Nablus
continued to be placed under a general closure and there remained a visible
military presence, particularly near the Balata and 'Askar refugee camps
('Askar refugee camp lies on a Zone A-Zone C border). Military operations in
and around the camps continued. During the course of one visit by an Amnesty
International researcher to Nablus, tanks were positioned on the hills just
above the Balata refugee camp and on the eastern side of the 'Askar camp and
tanks and armed personnel carriers moved frequently along the main 'Askar
road. Amnesty International researchers continued their work with difficulty,
never sure whether they would gain access or not. On another occasion Amnesty
International researchers walked six kilometres over the hills from Burin
dropping down to the edge of the old city; road intersections were barred by
tanks and IDF patrols and the whole town was under curfew. Unable to reach
the houses of the human rights defenders they had contacted, they left the
town going eight kilometres through streets away from the centre.
TO BE CONTINUED
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