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"IDF soldiers and officers have been given clear orders: to enter cities and villages which have become havens for terrorists; to catch and arrest terrorists and, primarily, their dispatchers and those who finance and support them; to confiscate weapons intended to be used against Israeli citizens; to expose and destroy terrorist facilities and explosives, laboratories, weapons production factories and secret installations. The orders are clear: target and paralyse anyone who takes up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, resists them or endangers them - and to avoid harming the civilian population."

[Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime Minister, before the Knesset, 8 April 2002]

"I have been in urban environments where house to house fighting has happened: Rwanda, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, and a city struck by a massive earthquake: Mexico city. The devastation seen in Jenin camp had the worst elements of both situations. Houses not just bulldozed or dynamited but reduced almost to dust by the repeated and deliberate coming and goings of bulldozers and tanks. Houses pierced from wall to wall by tank or helicopter gun ships. Houses cut down the middle as if by giant scissors. Inside, an eerie vision of dining or bedrooms almost intact. No signs whatsoever that that bedroom or dining room or indeed the house had been used by fighters. Gratuitous, wanton, unnecessary destruction. Children's prams, toys, beds everywhere. Where were those children? I do not know, but I do know where the survivors will be in the future."

[Javier Zuniga Amnesty International's Director of Regional Strategy who entered Jenin refugee camp on 17 April 2002]

On 29 March 2002 the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a new offensive, Operation Defensive Shield, in Palestinian residential areas. According to the IDF, the purpose of the offensive, like the incursions into refugee camps which preceded it in March and the occupation of the West Bank which followed in June, was to eradicate the infrastructure of "terrorism", in particular following Palestinian armed groups' killing of 80 Israeli civilians between 1 March and 1 April.(1)

The offensive began with an attack on President Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. The IDF then entered Bethlehem, Tulkarem and Qalqiliya from 1 April, followed by Jenin and Nablus from the nights of 3 and 4 April. They declared areas "closed military areas", barring access to the outside world. The IDF cut water and electricity in most areas, and imposed strict curfews on residents within the towns.

In Jenin and Nablus a tight cordon of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers was thrown around the areas where the IDF carried out operations: Jenin refugee camp and Nablus old city. Houses were intensively attacked by missiles from Apache helicopters.

After the first day those killed or wounded in Jenin and Nablus were left without burial or medical treatment. Bodies remained in the street as residents who ventured outside to collect or attend to the dead or injured were shot. Tanks travelling through narrow streets ruthlessly sliced off the outer walls of houses; much destruction of property by tanks was wanton and unnecessary. In one appalling and extensive operation, the IDF demolished, destroyed by explosives, or flattened by army bulldozers, a large residential area of Jenin refugee camp, much of it after the fighting had apparently ended.

In the four months between 27 February and the end of June 2002 - the period of the two major IDF offensives and the reoccupation of the West Bank - the IDF killed nearly 500 Palestinians. Although many Palestinians died during armed confrontations many of these IDF killings appeared to be unlawful and at least 16% of the victims, more than 70, were children. More than 8,000 Palestinians detained in mass round-ups over the same period were routinely subjected to ill-treatment(2) and more than 3,000 Palestinian homes were demolished.

The number of Israelis killed by Palestinian armed groups and individuals also increased: the number doubled during the month of March during the first Israeli incursions; in the four months up to the end of June 2002 more than 250 Israelis had been killed, including 164 civilians; 32 of those killed were children.(3)

Israel has the right and responsibility to take measures to prevent unlawful violence. The Israeli government equally has an obligation to ensure that the measures it takes to protect Israelis are carried out in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law. As the occupying power of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, Israel has an obligation to respect and protect the human rights of all people in these areas.

Avoiding Scrutiny

Throughout the period 4-15 April, the IDF denied access to Jenin refugee camp to all, including medical doctors and nurses, ambulances, humanitarian relief services, human rights organizations, and journalists. Amnesty International and other organizations tried to get information by the only means that seemed possible: constantly telephoning residents under curfew. By 12 April residents said that the continuous curfew had led to an acute food and water shortage. In some cases children were drinking waste water and became sick as a result. One resident from the edge of the camp said that: "the camp smells of death due to the scattered bodies, some bodies are buried under the rubble, others crushed by tanks, and the rest are left lying in the streets."

In the old city area of Nablus, the situation was quite similar. Cut off from the outside world by a cordon of IDF tanks from 3 to 22 April, Amnesty International and other human rights defenders relied on the telephone to find out what was happening; each resident was cut off and could speak only of the immediate surroundings. They described the lack of food and water and the fact they were unable to move from their houses. Occupants of one house reported the body, apparently of a Palestinian fighter, lying in the street outside; they said that when people had tried to go to him IDF soldiers shot at them. From inside the house they had watched the unknown Palestinian die; then they watched dogs eat the body as it decomposed.

Day after day residents begged for help by telephone, describing the sight and smell to medical organizations and human rights defenders unable to gain access and powerless to help.

The barriers erected by the IDF against the eyes of the outside world in Jenin and Nablus during April 2002 are typical of the barriers erected by the Israeli authorities over the past two years of the intifada. Today, every Palestinian town or village is blocked by heaps of earth, concrete blocks or IDF manned barriers. Israeli citizens are not allowed to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territories without special permission which is difficult to obtain. Palestinians from the Occupied Territories are banned from traveling on main roads and checked - and often turned back - at the Israeli-manned barrier outside every town. Since May 2002 a Palestinian cannot travel from one town to another in the Occupied Territories without a special pass. Most Palestinians do not have permits and thus do not travel. Gaza is cut off from the West Bank and entry to Jerusalem prohibited without special permission to all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.

The Israeli authorities claim that there are reasons for this. No Israeli may enter a Palestinian area as many Israeli civilians have been targeted and killed by Palestinian armed groups. No Palestinian may enter Jerusalem or travel on certain roads as many armed Palestinians have carried out attacks on Israelis. Apart from IDF tanks, armoured personnel carriers and jeeps no one now travels freely along the roads of the Occupied Territories. In April 2002 not only ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were banned from access to Jenin and Nablus: those from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were equally banned. Not only Israelis and Palestinians were banned from seeing what was happening in Jenin and Nablus, but diplomats, journalists and international human rights and humanitarian organizations were prevented from entrance to closed military areas.

A United Nations (UN) visiting mission ordered by the UN Commission on Human Rights on 5 April 2002 and headed by Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was not allowed to enter Israel and disbanded; even a high level Fact-Finding mission agreed between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and welcomed by unanimous vote of the UN Security Council was not allowed to enter Israel and disbanded after weeks of negotiations.

The Israeli State has the primary obligation under international law to investigate human rights violations, prosecute perpetrators, effect punishment, provide mechanisms that ensure prompt and adequate reparations for victims and ensure that violations are not repeated. However, the Israeli government, which set up the Or Commission of Inquiry to investigate the killing by security forces of 13 Palestinians killed in Israel at the beginning of the intifada in September/October 2000, has not carried out a prompt, thorough and independent investigation of any of the 1700 killings of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

Background to this Report

Since the beginning of the current intifada Amnesty International has sent 15 research missions to the region; more than half of them have taken place during the second year of the intifada. Eight reports were issued during the same period.

After Operation Defensive Shield began an Amnesty International delegate, Dr Kathleen Cavanaugh, an expert in international law, remained in the Occupied Territories for more than two months to monitor human rights developments. Among Amnesty International's delegates during April and May 2002 were Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, Derrick Pounder, Professor of Forensic Medicine, who visited Jenin and performed autopsies on bodies, and Major (ret) David Holley, a military advisor, who spent several weeks in the area in order to analyse military strategies and assess military necessity.

This report looks specifically at the actions of the IDF in Jenin and Nablus between April and June 2002. It examines allegations of unlawful killings; the use of "human shields"; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people detained; blocking of medical assistance, food and water; and the destruction of property, including damage or destruction of the civil infrastructure, commercial buildings, historic and religious buildings and homes. This report also reflects the means employed by the State of Israel to keep its human rights practices shielded from internal and external scrutiny.

Amnesty International delegates visited the sites of cases documented in the report and examined scenes of alleged violations. Their research included a review of Israeli High Court cases and an examination of written records (hospital lists, medical records, ambulance logs), public statements, and video documentation. Delegates conducted interviews with representatives of municipalities, local and international medical personnel, observers from the media and many Israelis, Palestinians and internationals working for local and international human rights and humanitarian organizations, and carried out scores of interviews with residents of Jenin and Nablus, victims or their families. Testimony and other evidence were cross-checked for accuracy.

In this way Amnesty International researchers pieced together the events of Jenin and Nablus.

The concerns regarding military operations that are raised in this report were discussed in May with Major General Giora Eiland, Head of the IDF Plans and Policy Directorate, and with Colonel Daniel Reisner, the head of the International Law Department of the IDF. Their comments and explanations are reflected in this report. In June and July Amnesty International submitted all the cases in the report to the IDF for comment; by the end of September 2002 no response had been received

In Jenin and Nablus the IDF carried out actions which violate international human rights and humanitarian law; some of these actions amount to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (the Fourth Geneva Convention) and are war crimes.

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."

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."

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.

Full text can be found in Amnesty Internationals' site: http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGMDE151432002