On Tuesday, April 9th, 13 IDF soldiers were killed in the Jenin refugee camp, when two forces of IDF reservists and regular soldiers, on a mission in search of wanted terrorists known to be hiding in the area, walked into a booby trapped area of explosive devices.

There were 20 gunmen and terrorists waiting in ambush. As the first Israeli force entered the narrow alley, the Palestinians activated the devices as a suicide bomber blew himself up, (body parts of the suicide bomber were found on the wall) killing the Israeli troops and causing the buildings, which were populated by Palestinian civilians, to explode and collapse upon the soldiers. Simultaneously, another platoon walked into a courtyard and was ambushed by gunmen. Snipers later shot the wounded, one by one.

Palestinians refused offers to remove bodies of Palestinians killed in this, or previous attacks, or to treat the wounded. They were acting on orders from the terrorists inside the camp, in order to create the impression of a massacre when the media are allowed access to the area.
Palestinian gunmen also shot at the ambulances arriving to treat and evacuate the wounded.

The IDF moves on the ground

Palestinian terrorists have chosen to create their bases of operation and fight in a civilian arena, a factor which has greatly restricted the methods of fighting open to the Israeli troops who are given strict orders to prevent civilian losses. Since the start of Operation Defensive Shield in March 28th, 2002, 28 soldiers have been killed so far and over 100 wounded.

Both Israel Radio and IDF Radio broadcast interviews all day long with various military experts - all using the same line: "if we fought like Americans this would not happen." In other words, if the Israeli soldiers had simply blown up the crowded buildings where the terrorists had taken refuge among hundreds of Palestinian families, Israel would not have suffered any casualties.

However, as news analyst Aaron Lerner has noted, while some commentators took pride in the fact that Israel does not follow the American model of demolishing targets from the air and instead endangers the lives of soldiers to avoid hurting civilians; others charged that it was immoral to sacrifice Israeli lives in order to avoid killing non-combatants, who knowingly provide cover for terrorists and who refuse to leave the area when afforded the opportunity to evacuate.

Veteran Israeli military correspondent, Ron Ben Yishai, said on Israel Radio that while Israel objects to blowing up Palestinian buildings from the air, so as not to cause mass destruction and kill innocent people, "the Palestinians do not hesitate to demolish Palestinian buildings to kill Israelis along with their own people."

Since the IDF soldiers entered Jenin at the beginning of April , twenty explosives factories have been uncovered, along with vast amounts of warfare armaments. In a recent press release, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that words cannot describe how many Jewish lives had been spared by being able to round up such a huge quantity of weapons that were intended for the mass murder of innocent Israelis.

Why Jenin?

Brigadier-General Ron Kitrey, IDF Spokesman, said regarding the heavy death toll of IDF soldiers in Jenin, that "23 terror attacks have originated out of Jenin, some of them suicide attacks." http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0lg00

The refugee camps have long been a source of terrorist activity against Israel. Since the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, items concerning the refuge camps have appeared almost daily in the media:

• suicide bombers who come from refugee camps;
• killers who take asylum in refugee camps;
• mortars that are fired from refugee camps;
• food warehouses in refugee camps which have been transformed into storage bins for artillery shells, ammunition and mortar rounds;
• Al Quaeda squads which are based in refugee camps;
• refugee camps which organize official celebrations in honor of their recently "martyred " suicide bombers.

The IDF against Terror

Operation Defensive Shield erupted at the end of March following a particularly violent month of suicide bomber attacks that occurred almost on a daily basis. During the month of March and early April, over 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers were murdered in suicide bombings and drive-by shootings; hundreds were injured.

Israel Police Force spokesman, Gil Kleinman, said that since the beginning of the Operation, there has been a steep decline in terrorist alerts and terrrorist activity against Israeli civilians. "We are still on full alert […] Our presence on the street corners has deterred many terrorist attacks and we have suffered a significant amount of casualties while serving as human shields to prevent innocent civilians being killed."

A Tangential Note on UNRWA

The Palestinian refugee camps are operated by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency - a body that was established by the UN after the 1948 War of Liberation, with a mandate to administer 'temporary shelters' until such time as the refugees earned/won/were granted the right to return to the homes and villages they had fled in '48 - even if these villages no longer existed!

UNRWA, remains the only refugee agency in the world whose apparent purpose is to perpetuate the status of refugees as refugees. Indeed, the official curriculum of the free UNRWA education system is based on that idea - that refugees must remain refugees until such time as they are repatriated to their homes.

Sammy Messhassha, Head of Public Affairs for UNRWA in Jerusalem, acknowledges that UNRWA is well aware of the fact that thousands of armed Palestinian Authority security personnel make their homes in UNRWA camps, and that UNRWA does not object to such a phenomenon.

P.A. media analyst Ghassan Khatib remarked to CNN, in a February 28, 2002 interview, that every young man in the UNRWA refugee camps now has his own personal weapon. The arrangements are simple:each UNRWA camp hosts a local steering committee in charge of distributing the funds received as charitable donations from relief organizations and donor countries around the world. It is that committee which decides whether to provide food rations, or weapons, with the money at their disposal.

Meanwhile, following the incursion into the UNRWA camp in Jenin, the IDF convened a press conference to show how UNRWA food storage bins in all of the UNRWA camps had been turned into ammunition dumps to supply armed weapons to Palestinian gunmen.

On the same day that the IDF entered Jenin, UNRWA issued an urgent memo for donor nations to urgently allocate funds for UNRWA food storage bins…

Points to Ponder

• Where were the international and Israeli protests to the UN Security Council and General Assembly about Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians in March 2002?
  
• Why did Israel feel it had no choice but to go into Area A (areas where the Palestinian Authority has full control)?
• Should Israel take action which it knows full well is going to lead to international media demonization and allegations?
• Should the Israeli Army be guided by the principle of minimising civilian casualties, even at such a high cost of casualties to its own forces?
• While the IDF is located in Palestinian towns, there has been a sharp reduction in terror attacks and the death toll of Israeli civilians. Yet, Israel has evidently given up on Palestinian intentions to police terrorism - so what mechanisms can ensure this de-escalation is maintained when Israel pulls out?
• UNWRA: Why does the UN run an agency that provides asylum to terrorists and convenient storage facilities for guns and ammunition - what is UNWRA supposed to be doing and what should be done about the mis-allocation of public money?