Jenin: IDF Military Operations

May 2002 Vol. XX, No. X (X)

Israel, The occupied west bankand gaza strip, and the palestinianauthority territories

Table of contents

About this research

Summary

Recommendations

Background: The Battle Inside Jenin Refugee Camp

Applicable Legal Standards

Civilian Casualties and Unlawful Killings in Jenin

Human Shielding and the Use of Civilians for Military Purposes

Medical and Humanitarian Access, and Attacks against Medical Personnel

Disproportionate and Indiscriminate Use of Force Without Military Necessity by the IDF

Acknowledgements

About this research.

A Human Rights Watch team of three experienced researchers spent seven days in Jenin fromApril 19, 2002 to April 28, 2002 to research this report. The team interviewed over one hundredresidents of Jenin refugee camp, gathering detailed accounts from victims and witnesses andcarefully corroborating and cross-checking their accounts with those of others. HumanRights Watch investigators also collected information from other first-hand observers ofthe events in the Jenin refugee camp, including international aid workers, medical workers,and local officials. The research also included information from public sources, includingIsraeli governmental sources, about the incursion. However, the IDF has not agreed to HumanRights Watchs repeated requests for information about its military incursions into theWest Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Human Rights Watchs research has been extensive, we do notpretend that it is comprehensive. Further inquiry is still in order, particularly as theexcavation process proceeds, and if Israel ultimately decides to make its soldiers involvedin the operation available for interview.
Summary

On April 3, 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major military operation in theJenin refugee camp, home to some fourteen thousand Palestinians, the overwhelming majorityof them civilians. The Israelis expressed aim was to capture or kill Palestinian militantsresponsible for suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed more than seventyIsraeli and other civilians since March 2002. The IDF military incursion into the Jeninrefugee camp was carried out on an unprecedented scale compared to other military operationsmounted by the IDF since the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in September 2000.

The presence of armed Palestinian militants inside Jenin refugee camp, and the preparationsmade by those armed Palestinian militants in anticipation of the IDF incursion, does notdetract from the IDFs obligation under international humanitarian law to take all feasibleprecautions to avoid harm to civilians. Israel also has a legal duty to ensure that its attackson legitimate military targets did not cause disproportionate harm to civilians.Unfortunately, these obligations were not met. Human Rights Watchs research demonstratesthat, during their incursion into the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces committed seriousviolations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes.

Due to the dense urban setting of the refugee camp, fighters and civilians were never at greatdistances. Civilian residents of the camp described days of sustained missile fire fromhelicopters hitting their houses. Some residents were forced to flee from house to houseseeking shelter, while others were trapped by the fighting, unable to escape to safety, andwere threatened by a curfew that the IDF enforced with lethal force, using sniper fire. HumanRights Watch documented instances in which soldiers converted civilian houses intomilitary positions, and confined the inhabitants to a single room. In other instances,civilians who attempted to flee were expressly told by IDF soldiers that they should return totheir homes.

Despite these close quarters, the IDF had a legal duty to distinguish civilians from militarytargets. At times, however, IDF military attacks were indiscriminate, failing to make thisdistinction. Firing was particularly indiscriminate on the morning of April 6, whenmissiles were launched from helicopters, catching many sleeping civilians unaware. Onewoman was killed by helicopter fire during that attack; a four-year-old child in another partof the town was injured when a missile hit the house where she was sleeping. Both were buildingshousing only civilians, with no fighters in the immediate vicinity.

The IDF used armored bulldozers to demolish residents homes. The apparent purpose was toclear paths through Jenins narrow and winding alleys to enable their tanks and other heavyweaponry to penetrate the camp interior, particularly since some of these had evidently beenbooby-trapped. However, particularly in the Hawashin district, the destruction extendedwell beyond any conceivable purpose of gaining access to fighters, and was vastlydisproportionate to the military objectives pursued. The damage to Jenin camp by missile andtank fire and bulldozer destruction has shocked many observers. At least 140 buildingsmostof them multi-family dwellingswere completely destroyed in the camp, and severe damagecaused to more than 200 others has rendered them uninhabitable or unsafe. An estimated 4,000people, more than a quarter of the population of the camp, were rendered homeless because ofthis destruction. Serious damage was also done to the water, sewage and electricalinfrastructure of the camp. More than one hundred of the 140 completely destroyed buildingswere in Hawashin district. In contrast to other parts of the camp where bulldozers were used towiden streets, the IDF razed the entire Hawashin district, where on April 9 thirteen IDFsoldiers were killed in an ambush by Palestinian militants. Establishing whether thisextensive destruction so exceeded military necessity as to constitute wantondestructionor a war crimeshould be one of the highest priorities for the United Nationsfact-finding mission.

The harm from this destruction was aggravated by the inadequate warning given to civilianresidents. Although warnings were issued on multiple occasions by the IDF, many civiliansonly learned of the risk as bulldozers began to crush their houses. Jamal Fayid, athirty-seven-year-old paralyzed man, was killed when the IDF bulldozed his home on top ofhim, refusing to allow his relatives the time to remove him from the home.Sixty-five-year-old Muhammad Abu Sabaa had to plead with an IDF bulldozer operator to stopdemolishing his home while his family remained inside; when he returned to hishalf-demolished home, he was shot dead by an Israeli soldier.

Human Rights Watch has confirmed that at least fifty-two Palestinians were killed as a resultof IDF operations in Jenin. This figure may rise as rescue and investigative work proceeds,and as family members detained by Israel are located or released. Due to the low number ofpeople reported missing, Human Rights Watch does not expect this figure to increasesubstantially. At least twenty-two of those confirmed dead were civilians, includingchildren, physically disabled, and elderly people. At least twenty-seven of thoseconfirmed dead were suspected to have been armed Palestinians belonging to movements such asIslamic Jihad, Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Some were members of thePalestinian Authoritys (PA) National Security Forces or other branches of the PA police andsecurity forces. Human Rights watch was unable to determine conclusively the status of theremaining three killed, among the cases documented.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scaleextrajudicial executionsby the IDF in Jenin refugee camp. However, many of the civiliandeaths documented by Human Rights Watch amounted to unlawful or willful killings by the IDF.Many others could have been avoided if the IDF had taken proper precautions to protectcivilian life during its military operation, as required by international humanitarianlaw. Among the civilian deaths were those of Kamal Zgheir, a fifty-seven-year-oldwheelchair-bound man who was shot and run over by a tank on a major road outside the camp on April10, even though he had a white flag attached to his wheelchair; fifty-eight year old MariamWishahi, killed by a missile in her home on April 6 just hours after her unarmed son was shot inthe street; Jamal Fayid, a thirty-seven-year old paralyzed man who was crushed in the rubbleof his home on April 7 despite his familys pleas to be allowed to remove him; andfourteen-year-old Faris Zaiban, who was killed by fire from an IDF armored car as he went to buygroceries when the IDF-imposed curfew was temporarily lifted on April 11.

Some of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch amounted to summary executions, a clear warcrime, such as the shooting of Jamal al-Sabbagh on April 6. Al-Sabbagh was shot to death whiledirectly under the control of the IDF: he was obeying orders to strip off his clothes. In atleast one case, IDF soldiers unlawfully killed a wounded Palestinian, Munthir al-Haj, whowas no longer carrying a weapon, his arms were reportedly broken, and he was taking no activepart in the fighting.

Throughout the incursion, IDF soldiers used Palestinian civilians to protect them fromdanger, deploying them as human shields and forcing them to perform dangerous work. HumanRights Watch received many separate and credible testimonies that Palestinians were placedin vulnerable positions to protect IDF soldiers from gunfire or attack. IDF soldiers forcedthese Palestinians to stand for extended periods in front of exposed IDF positions, or madethem accompany the soldiers as they moved from house to house. Kamal Tawalbi, the father offourteen children, described how soldiers kept him and his fourteen-year-old son for threehours in the line of fire, using his and his sons shoulders to rest their rifles as they fired.IDF soldiers forced a sixty-five-year-old woman was forced to stand on a rooftop in front of anIDF position in the middle of a helicopter battle.

As in prior IDF operations, soldiers forced Palestinians, sometimes at gunpoint, toaccompany IDF troops during their searches of homes, to enter homes, to open doors, and toperform other potentially dangerous tasks. In Jenin, such coerced use of civilians was awidespread practice; in virtually every case in which IDF soldiers entered civilian homes,residents told Human Rights Watch that IDF soldiers were accompanied by Palestiniancivilians who were participating under duress. The forced use of civilians during militaryoperations is a serious violation of the laws of war, as it exposes civilians to direct risk ofdeath or serious injury.

Human Rights Watch has so far found no evidence that Palestinian gunmen forced Palestiniancivilians to serve as human shields during the attack. But Palestinian gunmen did endangerPalestinian 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 thecamp, and intermingling with the civilian population during armed conflict, and, in somecases, to avoid apprehension by Israeli forces.

During Operation Defensive Shield, the IDF blocked the passage of emergency medicalvehicles and personnel to Jenin refugee camp for eleven days, from April 4 to April 15. Duringthis period, injured combatants and civilians in the camp as well as the sick had no access toemergency medical treatment. The functioning of ambulances and hospitals in Jenin city wasseverely circumscribed, and ambulances were repeatedly fired upon by IDF soldiers. FarwaJammal, a uniformed nurse, was killed by IDF fire while treating an injured civilian. In atleast two cases, injured civilians died without access to medical treatment. Direct attackson medical personnel and the denial of access to medical care for the wounded constituteserious violations of the laws of war.

During the period that the IDF directly controlled Jenin camp, the Israeli authorities wereobliged under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to protectcamp civilians from the dangers arising from hostilities, and to ensure to the maximum extentpossible under the circumstances that the civilian population had access to food and medicalsupplies. In practice, however, the IDF prevented humanitarian organizations, includingthe International Committee of the Red Cross, from gaining access to the camp and its civilianinhabitantsdespite the great humanitarian need. This blockage continued from April 11 to15, after the majority of armed Palestinians had surrendered. Human Rights Watchinvestigated and found no evidence to sustain reports that the IDF had removed bodies from therefugee camp for burial in mass graves.

Every case listed in the report below warrants additional thorough, transparent, andimpartial investigation, with the results of such an investigation made public. Wherewrongdoing is found, those responsible should be held accountable. There is a strong primafacie evidence that, in the cases noted below, IDF personnel committed grave breaches of theGeneva Conventions, or war crimes. Such cases warrant specific criminal investigationswith a view to ascertaining and prosecuting those responsible. Israel has the primaryobligation to carry out such investigations, but the international community also has aresponsibility to ensure that these investigations take place.
Recommendations

To the government of Israel:
1. Carry out a full and impartial investigation into the violations of international humanitarian law documented in this report, make the results public, and bring to account anyone found responsible for wrongdoing. If war crimes are found to have been committed, institute immediate criminal proceedings.
2. Declare unequivocally that Israeli security forces will respect and abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law, and uphold in all circumstances the principle of civilian immunity by taking all feasible precautions to protect civilians, discriminating between military targets and civilians, and ensuring access for medical and humanitarian assistance.
3. Take immediate action to end any excessive, indiscriminate, and disproportional useof force by Israeli security forces that endangers civilians.
4. Take immediate action to end the practice of using Palestinian civilians as humanshields in IDF military operations, and hold accountable in disciplinary or criminalproceedings persons found responsible for ordering, condoning, or carrying out thispractice.
5. Cease immediately the coerced use of civilians to facilitate IDF militaryoperations. Order all IDF personnel to halt these practices, disseminate this orderthroughout the IDF chain of command, and hold accountable those persons responsible forordering, condoning, or carrying out these practices.
6. cease immediately the practice of using lethal force to enforce curfews.
7. Ensure that the Palestinian population has access to an adequate level of health care,food, medical assistance, and other humanitarian goods and services essential tocivilian life.
8. Ensure that medical personnel and ambulances are able to carry out their duties andthat patients are able to reach health-care facilities, by allowing both groups to movefreely. Any restrictions on movement must not be excessive in impact or duration, besubject to regular review, and be imposed only when and to the extent that is absolutelynecessary.
9. Cooperate fully with the fact-finding mission established by the U.N. SecurityCouncil to investigate the events in Jenin.
10. Facilitate the immediate deployment of international observers in the West Bank andGaza Strip with a mandate to m, verify, and report publicly on the compliance by allparties with international humanitarian law standards.
  
  To the Palestinian Authority and armed Palestinian groups:
11. Declare unequivocally that Palestinian security forces and members of armed groupswill respect and abide by the principles of international humanitarian law, such asupholding in all circumstances the principle of civilian immunity, including by nottargeting civilians through the deployment of suicide bombers or other means, whetherin settlements or in Israel proper; by discriminating between military targets andcivilians; and by ensuring access for medical and humanitarian assistance.
12. Investigate all actions and policies that violate these principles and laws, make theresults public, hold accountable persons found to have violated these principles andlaws, and provide punishments or disciplinary measures that accord with the severity ofthese offenses.
13. Cooperate fully with the fact-finding mission established by the U.N. SecurityCouncil to investigate the events in Jenin.
To the government of the United States:
1. Request that the government of Israel take immediate steps to implement the aboverecommendations in both public and private communications.
2. Support efforts to address human rights and international humanitarian lawviolations by all parties in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the establishment ofan international presence there whose responsibilities include monitoring,verifying, and reporting publicly and regularly on the compliance by all parties withinternational human rights and humanitarian law, and provide experts for such aninternational presence.
3. Treat serious and systematic violations of international human rights andhumanitarian law by any party as requiring immediate remedy, and ensure thatenforcement of human rights and humanitarian law protections are not made subordinateto the outcomes of direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict.
4. Seek written assurances from Israel that weapons of U.S. origin, including but notlimited to Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships, D-9 armored bulldozers, and TOWanti-tank missiles, are not used to commit violations of international human rights andhumanitarian law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
5. Conduct and make public the results of a comprehensive review of Israeli use ofU.S.-origin weapons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and update this review not less thanevery six months.
6. Restrict Israels use in the West Bank and Gaza Strip of any U.S.-origin weapons foundto be used in the commission of systematic violations of international human rights andhumanitarian law.
7. Inform the government of Israel that continued U.S. military assistance requiresthat the government take clear and measurable steps to halt its security forces seriousand systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in theWest Bank and Gaza Strip. These steps should include conducting transparent andimpartial investigations into allegations of serious and systematic violations,making the results public, and holding accountable persons found responsible.
8. Monitor and report publicly on the use of U.S.-origin donor resources to ensure thatsuch resources do not support PA agencies or Palestinian groups responsible for seriousand systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
To the Member States of the European Union:
1. Treat serious and systematic violations of international human rights andhumanitarian law by any party as requiring immediate remedy, and ensure thatenforcement of human rights and humanitarian law protections are not made subordinateto the outcomes of direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict.
2. Develop and make public benchmarks for compliance by the government of Israel withinternational human rights and international law commitments as embedded in Article 2of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the E.U. and its member statesand Israel .
3. Develop and make public benchmarks for compliance by the Palestinian Authority withinternational human rights and international law commitments as embedded in Article 2of the Interim Association Agreement on trade and cooperation between the E.U. and itsmember states and the Palestinian Authority.
4. Support efforts to address human rights and international humanitarian lawviolations by all parties in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the establishment ofan international presence there whose responsibilities include monitoring,verifying, and reporting publicly and regularly on the compliance by all parties withinternational human rights and international law, and provide experts for such aninternational presence.
5. Seek written assurances from Israel that weapons originating with E.U. member statesare not used to commit violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
6. Conduct and make public the results of a comprehensive review of Israeli use of weaponsoriginating with E.U. member states, and update this review not less than every sixmonths.
7. Implement the European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports and restrict transfer to Israelof weapons found to be used in the commission of serious and systematic violations ofinternational human rights and humanitarian law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
To the United Nations Security Council and Secretariat
1. Ensure that the terms of reference of the fact-finding team appointed by the U.N.Secretary-General to investigate the situation in the Jenin refugee camp and endorsedin UNSC resolution 1405 include international human rights and internationalhumanitarian law, and that the fact-finding team in compiling its report take intoaccount all reliable and verifiable accounts of violations of international humanrights and humanitarian law.
2. Make the report of the fact-finding team public in a timely manner.
3. Establish on an urgent basis a permanent international presence in the West Bank andGaza Strip to monitor and report publicly and regularly on the compliance by all partieswith international human rights and humanitarian law.
To the International Community
1. Take immediate action, individually and jointly, to ensure respect for theprovisions of the Fourth Geneva Conventions relative to the Protection of CivilianPersons in Time of War, and Palestinian compliance with the law prohibiting attacks oncivilians.
2. Take steps, in accordance with paragraph 11 of the December 5, 2001 Declaration of theconference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to arrangeurgently for the deployment of independent and imparial observers to monitor Israeliand Palestinian compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and other provisions ofinternational humanitarian law.
Background: The Battle Inside Jenin Refugee Camp

Israeli authorities have repeatedly stressed the military significance of the IDFoperation inside Jenin refugee camp, stating that it was imperative to stop attacks againstIsraeli civilians, both by halting the individuals involved and by destroying theinfrastructure they used. Israeli officials claim that many of the suicide bombers that hadcarried out attacks against Israeli civilians came from the camp. A number of rankingPalestinian militants from the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade groupsalso lived in the refugee camp .

Armed Palestinians had prepared for the attack by setting up positions at the perimeter of andwithin the camp, and by laying booby-traps in many areas. Located on hills southwest ofJenins city center, the camps dense housing and narrow, twisting alleys made for a verydifficult environment in which to conduct close-range urban combat. When Human Rights Watchinvestigators visited the camp, residents spoke openly about the preparations made by themilitants, who have been estimated in media reports as having numbered between eighty and onehundred. Children could be seen walking around with unexploded Palestinian pipe bombs theyhad dug out of the rubble. A de-mining worker told Human RighWatch that he had defused fortyPalestinian-made bombs in a single day.

But the presence of armed Palestinian militants inside the camp, and the preparations made bythose armed Palestinian militants in anticipation of the IDF incursion does not detract froman essential fact: Jenin refugee camp was also home to more than 14,000 Palestiniancivilians. The IDF had an obligation under international humanitarian law to take allfeasible precautions to prevent a disproportionate impact of its military incursion onthose civilians.

Most witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch described the first two days of theincursion as consisting of tank, helicopter, and gunfire. IDF tanks and troops took uppositions around the camps perimeter during the night of April 2 to April 3. While accountsdiffer according to location, witnesses in the area of the camp immediately above thehospital reported seeing small numbers of IDF soldiers enter the camp on the morning and lateafternoon of April 3. Armed Palestinians took up positions at the camp entrance, and alsoreportedly at other edges of the camp. As the days passed, the armed Palestinians wereincreasingly forced back into the camp center, fighting in small groups that becameincreasingly isolated.

To enable tanks and heavy armor to penetrate to the camp, the IDF sent in armored bulldozers towiden the narrow alleys by shearing off the fronts of buildings, in places several metersdeep. In the initial days, Palestinian fighters held off the IDF to the west of the camp, whileto the east bulldozers penetrated the hilltop district of al-Damaj, overlooking the centerof the camp. The IDF infantry managed to enter the northern entrance to the camp, throwingsmoke grenades to provide cover as they went from house to house. Although helicopters werepresent, at that stage they primarily provided air-to-ground support. IDF soldiersmouseholed from house to house, knocking large holes in the walls between houses to provideroutes of safe passage from to the outer perimeters of the camp to the center. In numerouscases, they used Palestinian civilians and detainees as human shields as they moved fromhouse to house, and, as Human Rights Watch has documented in previous incursions elsewhere inthe West Bank and Gaza Strip, forced civilians to perform the most dangerous tasks of enteringand checking buildings during house-to-house searches.

The third day of the incursion, in the early morning hours of April 6, U.S.-suppliedhelicopters started firing missiles into the camp, often striking civilian homes where noPalestinian fighters were present. The missile fire, which began in the early morning hours,caught many sleeping civilians by surprise. The chaos and destruction caused by thebombardment allowed the IDF to move closer to the center of the camp. On April 9, thirteenIsraeli soldiers died in a major ambush in Hawashin district.

After the April 9 ambush, the IDF relied heavily on missile strikes from helicopters. It alsoextensively used armored bulldozers, which allowed the IDF to penetrate districts wherepreviously they had not been able to consolidate control. The change in military strategyarguably helped to defeat the armed Palestinians in the camp, but as described below, the newtactics had an unacceptable impact on the civilian population and infrastructure of thecamp.

The IDF continued to use armored bulldozers throughout the operation. On April 10, armoredbulldozers were sent to widen an alley in Abu Nasr district, to the west of Hawashin. At thistime, the bulldozers were still primarily being used to widen streets. On April 12, civiliansin the Matahin area of the camp, located above the main UNRWA school, were likewise warned toleave their homes in advance of their being destroyed by bulldozers. Many heeded the call.Armored bulldozers soon arrived to clear a broad path for the IDFs armored vehicles,leveling many of the homes in their path.

Towards the end of the IDF operation, the fighting and destruction was mostly focused on thecentral Hawashin district of the camp. The majority of the fighting appears to have subsidedby April 10, but isolated pockets of Palestinian militants continued to hold out for somedays. The bulldozers appear to have continued razing homes even after most of the fighting hadended. At the end, the bulldozers had done much more than creating paths for the IDF tanks andarmored cars in Hawashin district: the entire area, down to the last house, had been leveled.
Applicable Legal Standards

In any armed conflict, the right of parties to the conflict to choose the methods or means ofwarfare is not unlimited, but rather is strictly regulated by International HumanitarianLaw (IHL) as codified in the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols. Of particularrelevance are the concepts of proportionality, military necessity, and limits on thedestruction of civilian property.

Prohibition on the Indiscriminate and Disproportional Use of Force

The most fundamental principle of the laws of war requires that combatants be distinguishedfrom noncombatants, and that military objectives be distinguished from protected propertyand protected places. Parties to a conflict must direct their operations only againstmilitary objectives (including combatants). Military objectives are defined as thoseobjects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution tomilitary action.

Under Protocol I, Article 51(4), indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Israel is not aparty to Protocol I, but the provisions prohibiting indiscriminate warfare are consideredto be norms of customary international law, binding on all parties in a conflict, regardlessof whether it is an international or internal armed conflict. Indiscriminate attacks arethose which are not directed against a military objective, those which employ a method ormeans of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective, or those whichemploy a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by theProtocol, and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike militaryobjectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

Among the types of attacks specifically prohibited as indiscriminate is an attack which maybe expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage tocivilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to theconcrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Also prohibited are attacks againstthe civilian population or civilians by way of reprisal.

The term means of combat refers generally to the weapons used; method refers to the way inwhich such weapons are used. Casualties that are a consequence of accidents, as in situationsin which civilians live adjacent to military installations, may be considered incidental toan attack on a military objectiveso called collateral damagebut care must still havebeen taken shown to try and identify the presence of civilians. Article 57 of Protocol I setsout the precautions required, among them to do everything feasible to verify that theobjectives to be attacked are neither civilians or civilian objects, to take all feasibleprecautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any caseminimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilianobjects, and to refrain from deciding to launch any attackor to cancel or suspend any attackalready in progresswhich may be expected to cause such deaths, injuries or damage whichwould be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.In its authoritative Commentary on the protocols, the International Committee of the RedCross (ICRC) statesis clear on what is meant by feasible in Article 57: What is required isto take the necessary identification measures in good time to spare the population as far aspossible.

The principle of proportionality places a duty on combto choose means of attack that avoid orminimize damage to civilians. In particular, the attacker should refrain from launching anattack if the expected civilian casualties would outweigh the importance of the militaryobjective. Protocol I, Article 57 (Precautions in attack) requires those who plan and/orexecute an attack to cancel or desist from the attack in such circumstances.

The ICRC Commentary on Article 57 of Protocol I sets out a series of factors that must be takeninto account in applying the principle of proportionality to the incidental effects thatattacks may have on civilian persons and objects:

The danger incurred by the civilian population and civilian objects depends on variousfactors: their location (possibly within or in the vicinity of a military objective), theterrain (landslides, floods etc.), accuracy of the weapons used (greater or lesserdispersion, depending on the trajectory, the range, the ammunition used etc.), technicalskills of the combatants (random dropping of bombs when unable to hit the intended target).

As expressed in the ICRC Commentary, the golden rule to be followed when makingdeterminations about the proportionality of an attack is the duty to spare civilians andcivilian objects in the conduct of military operations.

Military Necessity

Military necessity is one of the most difficult concepts to define under IHL, as a too broaddefinition of military necessity could easily undermine much of IHL norms and revert to anunacceptable anything is fair in war standard. The rule of military necessity does notallow for military measures to be taken that violate the laws of lawar or that do not have amilitary purpose (that is, that are not intended to defeat the enemy, or that wouldexcessively harm civilians or damage civilian objects in relation to the concrete and directmilitary advantage anticipated). Military necessity means the necessity for measureswhich are essential to attain the goals of war, and which are lawful in accordance with the lawsand customs of war. An American commentator has attempted to offer a definition of militarynecessity:Military necessity is an urgent need, admitting of no delay, for the taking by a commander, of

measures which are indispensable for forcing as quickly as possible the complete surrenderof the enemy by means of regulated violence, and which are not prohibited by the laws andcustoms of war.

The Commentary to Protocol I subsequently refers to this definition by saying that it isbased on four foundations: urgency, measures which are limited to the indispensable, thecontrol (in space and time) of the force used, and the means which should not infringe on anunconditional prohibition.

While military necessity does grant military planners a certain degree of freedom ofjudgment about the appropriate tactics for carrying out a military operation, it can neverjustify a degree of violence which exceeds the level which is strictly necessary to ensure thesuccess of a particular operation in a particular case. Hence, the degree of autonomygranted to military planners by the concept of military necessity is subservient to the ruleof proportionality and other laws and customs of war.

Limits on the Destruction of Civilian Property

Because the West Bank and Gaza have been militarily occupied by Israel since 1967, thePalestinians living in these territories are protected persons entitled to particularprotections under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Conventionprohibits the destruction of real or personal property in occupied territories exceptwhere such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. Even whensuch destruction is absolutely necessary, the occupying authorities must try to keep asense of proportion in comparing the military advantage to be gained with the damage done.

Destruction of civilian property can be a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, andthus a war crime, if it amounts to extensive destruction and appropriation not justified bymilitary necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. To amount to a grave breach, thedestruction and appropriation must be extensive: an isolated case is not enough.
Civilian Casualties and Unlawful Killings in Jenin

During its investigation, Human Rights Watch found serious violations of internationalhumanitarian law. The organization documented fifty-two Palestinian deaths in the camp andits environs caused by the fighting. At least twenty-two of those confirmed dead werecivilians, including children, physically disabled, and elderly people. At leasttwenty-seven of those confirmed dead were suspected to have been armed Palestiniansbelonging to movements such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Somewere members of the Palestinian Authoritys (PA) National Security Forces or other branchesof the PA police and security forces. Human Rights watch was unable to determine conclusivelythe status of the remaining three killed, among the cases documented.

Because of the largemassive number of homes in the refugee camp that were demolished by theIDF, it is possible that the total number of casualties will climb somewhat, though notdramatically, as recovery efforts proceed. Corpses continued to be recovered on a dailybasis in the camp as Human Rights Watch was carrying out its research in the camp, but residentsin the camp had already identified those persons as killed before their bodies wererecovered. Because the IDF has not made available the full list of names of those arrestedduring the operation, some families are unsure whether relatives have been arrested by theIDF or have been killed in the camp.It does not appear that there are larger numbers of missing persons from the camp. The

residents of the camp gave consistent lists of the known or suspected dead in the camp, andthose lists did not grow significantly while Human Rights Watch conducted research in thecamp.

Some of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch amount to unlawful and deliberatekillings. However, the organization did not find evidence of systematic summaryexecutions.

During its investigation, however, Human Rights Watch documented unlawful and deliberatekillings, and the killing or wounding of protected individuals as a result of excessive ordisproportionate use of force. Such cases are in violation of the internationalhumanitarian law prohibitions against willful killing of noncombatants. Theorganization also found instances of IDF soldiers deliberately impeding the work of medicalpersonnel and preventing medical assistance to the wounded with no apparent or obviousjustification of military necessity. Such cases appear to be in violation of the prohibitionagainst willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

At least four persons were killed by the IDF because they were outside during curfews or walkedin areas declared closed by the Israeli army. Such use of lethal force to enforce curfews orclosed areas is a widespread practice by the IDF. The use of lethal force against civilianswho do not abide by curfews or are found in closed areas is unjustified, and a violation of theinternational humanitarian law provisions prohibiting the targeting of civilians.International humanitarian law requires that the IDF use less lethal means to enforce itscurfews and closed areas.

In addition, the dimensions of the destruction and the temporal sequence of the demolition ofhomes and property found by Human Rights Watch researchers suggest that these were carriedout unlawfully and wantonly and did not meet the strict requirements of military necessityand proportionality.There is strong prima facie evidence that in some of the cases documented grave breaches of the

Geneva Conventions, or war crimes, were committed. Such cases warrant specific criminaljustice investigations with a view to identifying and prosecuting those responsible.

Human Rights Watch researchers also identified other serious violof the laws and customs ofwar, such as the practice of shielding, in which Palestinian civilians were used to screenIsraeli soldiers from return fire. Shielding, while not a grave breach of internationalhumanitarian law, is nonetheless absolutely prohibited and warrants investigation.

Every case listed below requires thorough, transparent, and impartial investigation. Theresults of the investigation should be made public, and where wrongdoing is found, thoseresponsible should be held accountable. Israel has the primary obligation to carry out suchan investigation, but the international community also has a responsibility to ensure thatthe investigation takes place.

Shooting of Hani Abu Rumaila, April 3

Hani Abu Rumaila, aged nineteen19, spent the night of April 2 at the house of his grandmother.When the IDF first reached the Jenin camp and gun battles erupted at about 4:00 a.m. on April 3,he ran home to his parents house and informed his father that tanks had arrived at theoutskirts of the camp. Then he decided to return to the gate of the house and watch what the IDFsoldiers were doing. His stepmother, Hala Abu Rumaila, explained how Hani was killed atabout 5:30 that morning:

The Israelis had just arrived and Hani wanted to open the main gate to the house. He wanted to seewhat was going on outside. Then, [as he opened the gate], they [IDF] shot him in the leg. Hestarted screaming. When he tried to stand up and run back home, they shot him in the abdomen andchest.

A nurse living nearby tried to come to Hanis rescue when she heard the screaming, but washerself killed by the IDF soldiers (see below). The family then called an ambulance, whichremoved Hanis body to the hospital. Because of the intense fighting, Hanis family could notmake their way to the hospital for funeral arrangements, and Hani was buried in a temporarycommunal grave at the back of the hospital. Hani was unarmed at the time of the killing, and wasnot a member of any Palestinian militant group, according to his family. Normally, when aPalestinian militant is killed, family take some pride in the fact that the dead relative wasin an armed group opposing the occupation, and make no effort to deny the militant history ofthe deceased.

The Abu Rumaila family showed Human Rights Watch the nearby home that had been occupied by IDFsoldiers during the Jenin offensive and from which they believed IDF soldiers had fired onHani Abu Rumaila. That home is located about one hundred meters down the street from the AbuRumaila home, diagonally across the street, and had a clear line of sight to the gate of the AbuRumaila home where Hani was shot.

Shooting of nurse Farwa Jammal, April 3

Farwa Jammal, a twenty-seven-year-old nurse from Tulkarem, was visiting her sister at theJenin refugee camp at the time of the Israeli incursions. On the evening of April 2, concernedabout a possible IDF attack on Jenin, Farwa and her sister, Rufaida Jammal, went to the mainhospital to stock up on first aid supplies to be ready to submit help to anyone who would needit, according to Rufaida.

Farwa and Rufaida Jammal were awakened early in the morning of April 3 by loud explosions andthe screams of Hani Abu Rumaila, who had been severely wounded in their neighborhood (seeabove). Farwa put on her white nurses uniform, marked with the red crescent symbol (theMmuslim equivalent of the red cross), and exited the house together with her sister Rufaida,intending to help the wounded man.

According to Rufaida, they met a small group of unarmed young Palestinian men outside theirhome who were also trying to assist the wounded Hani, and stopped to discuss with them the bestway to proceed. IDF soldiers opened fire on the group, wounding Rufaida and killing her sisterFarwa:

Before I finished talking with the men, the Israelis started shooting. I got hit with a bulletin my upper thigh. I fell down and broke my knee. My sister [Farwa] tried to come and help me.Then, she was shot in her abdomen. I told her I was wounded, and she replied that she was alsowounded. I repeated the shahada [the Muslim declaration of faith, customarily recited byMuslims who believe they are about to die]. Then [Farwa] was shot in the heart. The Israelisoldiers were very near to us and could hear and see us. We were clearly visible to them. Theykept shooting at us, and I got another bullet in my other leg.

Because of the intense Israeli shooting, no help could reach the wounded Rufaida and the dyingFarwa. Rufaidas forty-year-old husband was at the gate of their home, but was unable to reachhis wounded wife. Taysir Damaj, Rufaidas husband, explained how he was shot at by the Israelisoldiers as he tried to rescue his wife, and how she finally had to crawl to safety under a hail ofbullets:

I was standing by the window and heard my wife calling for an ambulance. I went out, trying to getsome help to them. They [the IDF] were shooting at me, so I lay down in the street. I crawled backto a car parked outside my house. They shot a bomb at me that hit the car. The explosion hit the carand I ran back home. They shot again at me, and then I entered my compound and closed the gate.

My wife crawled back to the main gate. I watched from the window. Then I went outshooting wascontinuing the whole time. I pulled her inside our home. I tried to stop the bleeding as best as Icould, she was bleeding heavily. Then, one half hour after we called, an ambulance finallyarrived and took her to the hospital.

Rufaida Jammal was adamant that there was no Palestinian fire in the immediate vicinity whereshe and her sister were wounded, and that they were far away from the battle between IDFsoldiers and Palestinian militants. The wounding of a member of the medical personnel awayfrom the combat area requires a war crimes investigation.

The Shooting of Civilian Imad Musharaka, April 3

At about 9:00 a.m. on April 3, forty-two-year-old Fadil Musharaka was standing in the streetnear his home with his two brothers and his mother, watching the early stages of the IDFincursion into the refugee camp. They watched as Ziad Amr Zubeidi, a leading member of themilitant Palestinian group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, emerged from a house and was shot deadalmost immediately by IDF soldiers stationed at a nearby house. According to FadilMusharaka, who witnessed the shooting, Amr Zubeidi was not holding a weapon at the time of theshooting. No attempt was made to arrest him.

Fadil Musharaka attempted to call an ambulance to remove Zubeidis body, but was unable to getthrough to the hospital on his mobile phone. Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Imad Musharaka,an unarmed civilian, attempted to reach Zubeidis body and pull it out of the street. Fadilwatched as the IDF soldiers shot his brother Imad: Imad tried to pull Ziads body out of thestreet, but [the IDF soldiers] shot him in the leg. When he tried to stand up again, he was shot inthe head. After one half hour, the ambulance came, and took both bodies to the hospital. Imadwas a civilian, he was watching there with me. The shooting in broad daylight of an unarmedcivilian, Imad Musharaka, requires a war crimes investigation. Establishing the truecircumstances of the death of Palestinian militant Ziad Zubeidi warrants a separateinvestigation.

Shooting of Muhammad Hawashin, April 3

Alia Zubeidi, the mother of Al-Aqsa militant Ziad Amr Zubeidi, heard on Jerusalem Radio thather son had been killed and his body taken to the hospital. Although her home was far away fromthe hospital and heavy fighting was taking place in the camp at the time, she decided to go to thehospital to see her sons body. On her way through the refugee camp, she met many people whoexpressed their condolences for the loss of her son. Fourteen-year-old Muhammad Hawashinconsidered Ziad Amr Zubeidi a hero, and insisted on coming along to the hospital with Alia,over Alias objections: All the people in the area advised me not to continue to the hospital,because it was too dangerous. I insisted on going but asked no onto follow me. Two boys insistedon following me. I kept telling Muhammad to go back, but he insisted that he wanted to see Ziadhimself.

Just before Alia Zubeidi and Muhammad Hawashin reached the hospital, they found an earthenmound erected by Palestinian militants in an attempt to delay the entry of IDF forces into thecamp. They climbed over the mound, and then IDF shooting erupted in their direction, fatallywounding Muhammad Hawashin:

I passed across [the earthen mound], then I heard shooting. The bullets were flying between meand the two boys. Two meters later, [Muhammad] raised his hand and cried for help. I could donothing for the boy. I ran to the ambulance, and told them to forget about my dead son and help theboy. They were afraid because the soldiers shot at anyone who tried to pass the earthenbarrier. Then the ambulance crew went to get the boy, but he was already dead. He was shot twicein the face.

At the time of the shooting, Muhammad Hawashin and the women and children who were with him hadessentially exited the Jenin refugee camp, and were walking in an open area behind thehospital. The use of live fire, directed at a group of women and children located outside theactive combat zone, cannot be justified on grounds of military necessity, constitutes aserious violation of the rules of war, and requires in-depth investigation.

Shooting of Ahmad Hamduni, April 3

Eighty-five-year-old Ahmad Hamduni was left virtually alone at his home when the fightingbroke out in Jenin refugee camp, because his family had moved to an area south of Jenin two daysbefore. When the fighting reached his area around 3:00 p.m. on April 3, he moved to the home ofanother elderly neighbor, seventy-two-year-old Raja Tawafshi. The two elderly men firsthad some twenty-five relatives staying with them, but at about 5:00 p.m. those relatives leftthe house, leaving the two elderly men alone.

After the men finished their evening prayers, Israeli soldiers suddenly attacked the home.Raja Tawafshi recalled how his neighbor was killed by the soldiers soon after they entered:

After I had finished praying, they [the soldiers] shot one door of my gate off and it flew intothe room. I stood up and they shot at me. I raised my hands. They shot a sound bomb [concussiongrenade] inside and the soldiers came inside with their guns. I stood up with my hands up, and[Ahmad Hamduni] was behind me.

Because he is an old man, [Ahmad Hamduni] hunches over. The soldiers were worried [about thehunch in his back] and shot him immediately. I told them, he is an old man, and I tried to touchhim. Then the soldiers told me to go out of the room.

The soldiers proceeded to search the entire three-story home, pushing Tawafshi in front ofthem at gunpoint: The soldier put the gun to my back and they searched the house, pushing me infront of them. While the soldiers were inspecting the top story with Tawafshi, an IDF missilehit the floor, narrowly missing the group. The soldiers then returned downstairs, placedTawafshis hands in plastic cuffs, and tied him to a chair next to the body of his neighbor,which they had covered with a carpet. Tawafshi explained how he was kept in the chair all night:

They tied my hands and feet and put me in the seat. They tied me to the seat with plastic tape,wrapping it around my chest and legs. They brought a blanket and put it over me. I was thirsty andasked for some water in Hebrew. They said no. Later, I needed to go to the toilet. They asked me toshut up. I was suffering, but nobody helped me. I was in the chair from 7:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m.Then they came, cut me loose and took the blanket.

The soldiers then took Tawafshi out of the home at gunpoint and demanded that he check the homesof four neighbors before they finally allowed him to go home (see below for a furtherdiscussion of the coerced use of civilians during the Jenin operation).

The Murder of Palestinian Militant Munthir al-Haj, April 3

Munthir al-Haj, a twenty-two-year-old armed Palestinian militant, was injured onWednesday April 3, the first day of the incursion. Other fighters carried him from elsewhereto the steps of the mosque on the top floor of al-Razi hospital, a charity hospital located sometwo kilometers from Jenin Camp. Al-Haj, who had multiple wounds, lay unarmed on the mosquesteps and called out for help.

Hisham Samara, a hospital cook, was working in the upstairs kitchen at 11:30 a.m. when he heardsomeone in pain shouting for help. Samara called two nurses to come with him, and went to themosque to locate the sounds source. Confronted by broken glass and bullets, they kept ontheir shoes and crossed to the mosques windows. There they saw al-Haj, lying at the foot of themosque steps. An IDF tank was in the street, some six meters away.

Samara and the nurses attempted to reach the wounded man, some three to four meters from themosques external door.

We took one of the nurses scarves and made a white flag. I wound the white flag on a stick. Iopened the door, and put my arm with the stick and the scarf outside of the mosque door. While Ihad my arm out, there was the sound of a big explosionso loud I could not hear anything.

Samara did not know what caused the sound, but drew his hand in and waited. Some fifteen minuteslater, Samara and the nurses tried again. This time, however, they were forced back by firefrom the tank.

As I stuck my hand out the tank began to fire in bursts of bullets, it was very heavy. Of course wetried to speak with the wounded man during all of this and try to get him to crawl towards us.Sometimes he would say, I can not hear you; other times he would say, I cant, I cant. Bothhis hands were broken, he couldnt move them. There was a lot of blood on the stairs.

For the next one and a half to two hours, hospital staff made at least three attempts to reachal-Haj, who gradually pulled himself to the mosque steps. Two doctors, dressed in white andcarrying white flags, attempted to exit the mosque doors. They were forced back by anotherloud explosion. Others tried to pass the wounded man a rope so he could pull himself to safety,but were thwarted when he could not move his hands sufficiently to grasp the rope. Neighboringfamilies called the hospital staff to beg them to take action; some tried to reach the manthemselves, but gave up after facing tank fire. Hospital staff called the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross and human rights organizations to press them to intervene.Samaras account was corroborated in a separate interview by Dr. Mahmud Abu Aleih, thehospital internist. It was terrible for us, not being able to help him, Abu Aleih told HumanRights Watch. This is supposed to be our job.

Their efforts were to no avail. By this time al-Haj was lying on his side on the mosque steps withhis head resting on his hands. According to Samara, al-Haj was fired at from the immediatedirection of the tank. He told Human Rights Watch:

The tank fired at him and the bullets entered his back. It was a spray of fire, but it was not heavytank fire. It sounded like the fire from an M-16, a hand weapon. We are sure it was from the tankbecause he was directly in front of it.

Samara reported that, while exchanges of fire had taken place earlier in the morning, therewere no exchanges of fire in the area of the hospital at the time al-Haj was shot and killed. Hisstatement was corroborated by Samar Qasrawi, a hospital nurse interviewed separately byHuman Rights Watch. Seven members of the hospital staff eventually managed to reach al-Hajsbody and store it in a makeshift mortuary. It was kept under ice and fans for three days, untilthe curfew was lifted and al-Hajs family was able to take the body away.

After he was shot and no longer armed, al-Haj became hors de combat , meaning that he was nolonger taking an active part in the fighting. Wounded combatants who are no longer taking partin fighting should not be denied medical care, nor are they legitimate military targets. Thekilling of al-Haj after he was woundeand no longer armed amounts to a case of willful killing, agrave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and, as such, a war crime.

Shooting of Atiya Abu Rumaila, April 5

Atiya Abu Rumaila, aged forty-four, is the father of Hani Abu Rumaila, who was killed on thefirst day of the Israeli incursion. On the evening of Thursday, April 4 at about 10:00 p.m., thefamily was sleeping when Israeli gunfire suddenly hit their home. Atiya, his wife, and threechildren shifted from their exposed bedrooms to the kitchen, where they spent the night. OnFriday at about noon, Israeli soldiers entered the home of their neighbors and attempted toblast a passage from the neighbors house into the Abu Rumaila home, causing significantdamage to the house but failing to blast a hole in between the two homes. At about 5:00 p.m. onFriday, Atiyas wife Hala went to check on the damage in the rooms, and found two unexplodedIsraeli shells in one room.

Concerned about the damage reported to his home by his wife, Atiya decided to go check forhimself, despite the protests of his wife. Two minutes later, Hala heard her husband callingfor help with some difficulty. Hala and her children ran up to the room, and found Atiyastanding, seriously wounded. Atiya looked at his wife and children before starting tocollapse, and his wife then noticed the gunshot wound to his head. Human Rights Watchresearchers examined the room where Atiya was shot, and found that the nearby home that hadbeen occupied by IDF soldiers during the Jenin operationthe same home that was the source ofthe firing that killed Atiyas son Hani on April 3was clearly visible from where Atiya hadbeen standing when he was shot. The trajectory of the bullets, indicated by following the pathof the bullets through the window into the wall behind Atiya, pointed directly to the home thathad been occupied by the IDF.

Hala called an ambulance, but the IDF soldiers did not allow the ambulance to proceed:

I started screaming, asking anyone to call an ambulance. The ambulance came, but it wasprevented from reaching us. Atiya was still breathing at the time. But there was no aid, noambulance. I couldnt go outside because there were Israeli snipers and tanks everywhere.All this time we were just crawling.

Atiya died from the gunshot wound within the hour:

After all my trials trying to get anyone to help, I went back to the body. I started checking, andmade sure he died. I closed his eyes and straightened his hands. I closed the door because Ididnt want my children to see their father dead. He had promised to buy the children some milkbefore he died, and they kept asking where the milk was. I spent the whole night with thechildren in one room. I couldnt close my eyes. At midnight, I went to the room and put a blanketover him.

Hala and her three children were still trapped in their home, unable to flee because of thefighting. After her husband had been shot on Friday afternoon, Hala broke a window at the rearof her home and considered jumping out, but was warned by her neighbors that the window was toohigh from the ground. On Saturday morning, she tied some sheets together and lowered herseven-year-old son to the ground to go seek help. The boy went to inform their relatives of thedeath, and Atiyas elderly mother came wailing to the house, ignoring the danger, screamingHani! Atiya! The family was forced to remain in the house for five more days before the IDFannounced that all civilians should leave the area because they were about to bomb the camp.The family left the home. The next day, one week after Atiya was killed, an ambulance wasfinally able to recover the body.

Shooting of Abd al-Nasr Gharaib , April 5

Abd al-Nasr Gharaib (also known as Abd al-Nasr Abu Hattab), was a thirty-eight year old man whosuffered from mental problems. His family home is located on the outskirts of the Jeninrefugee camp. On Friday, April 5, at about 2:00 p.m., Israeli gunfire hit his home, firstinjuring his sixty-five-year-old father, Mahmud Gharaib (Abu Hattab). Mahmud Gharaibexplained:

On Friday at 2:00 p.m., we were surprised that the house next to us was occupied by Israelisoldiers. They went inside and started shooting randomly. I wanted to close the door to makesure that the children would not go outside. They shot me with a smoke bomb.

Mahmud Gharaib was wounded in the foot by the bomb, but the family could not leave the homebecause of the heavy shooting outside. Finally, they broke a window in the rear of the home andevacuated the wounded man through the window. He remained at another home deeper inside therefugee camp for a week without any medical assistance, causing his wound to become seriouslyinfected.

Abd al-Nasr Gharaibs family evacuated their home together with their grandfather, but Abdal-Nasr decided to remain behind to look after the home. On Sunday, April 7, Abd al-Nasrseight-year-old son returned to the home to check on his father and found him shot dead:

I saw my father on the floor. We found the whole house destroyed inside. My father was in thefront room. He had three bullets in his chest and one in the head. My uncle is a doctor. He calledan ambulance. He tried to come and take the body, but couldnt reach us. A lot of tanks hadsurrounded the hospital and he couldnt leave. We left the body for four or five days.

A next-door neighbor told Human Rights Watch that Abd al-Nasr Gharaib had been shot by the IDF:They [the IDF] were telling him [Abd al-Nasr Gharaib] to come out. Before he could come out,they shot him. We heard him screaming twice and then it got quiet.

Bombing Death of Afaf Disuqi, April 5

At about 3:15 p.m. on Friday, April 5, Israeli soldiers ordered Asmahan Abu Murad, agedtwenty-four, to come with them to knock on the home of the neighboring Disuqi family. As shecame outside, she saw a group of Israeli soldiers, including one who was holding a bomb with alit fuse which he was attaching to the Disuqi home: I went outside and saw one soldier with abomb, the string was already lit. They told me, Quickly, put your fingers in your ears. All ofthe soldiers went away from the bomb, then one soldier threw the bomb and the others startedshooting at the door.

Aisha Disuqi, the thirty-seven-year-old sister of fifty-two-year-old Afaf Disuqi,explained how the latterher sister went to the door to check on the smoke and to open it for thesoldiers, and was killed in the explosion that followed:

We were inside in a room and saw some smoke. The soldiers were asking us to open the door. Mysister Afaf went to the door to open it, and while she was opening it, the bomb exploded. Whenthe bomb exploded, we were all screaming, calling for an ambulance. The soldiers werelaughing. We saw the right side of her face was destroyed, and the left side of her shoulder andarm was also wounded. She was killed that first moment.

Asmahan Abu Murad, who was outside with the soldiers in front of the door, corroborated in aseparate interview with Human Rights Watch that the soldiers were laughing after the killingof Afaf Disuqi: After the explosion, I heard her sisters scream for an ambulance. Thesoldiers were laughing. Then they told me to go back inside. After the explosion, thesoldiers did not enter the Disuqi home. They told Asmahan Abu Murad that she could go home, andthe soldiers then left the scene. During the time of the incident, there was no active combat orfiring in the neighborhood. The remorseless murder of Afaf Disuqi, an unarmed civilian,constitutes a war crime.

Afaf Disuqis family took her body inside the home, and repeatedly tried to get an ambulance:We had a mobile but could only receive incoming calls. Every time someone called, we asked foran ambulance, but it was prohibited [for the ambulances to move]. The body remained at thehome from Friday until the next Thursday, when the family was able to move the body to thehospital.

Shooting of Abd al-Karim Saadi and Wadah Shalabi, April 6

The families of Abd al-Karim Saadi, aged twenty-, and Wadah Shalabi, aged thirty-eight, areneighbors who live close to the main entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, where the campadministration was located. Abd al-Karim Saadi was visiting the Shalabi family at about6:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, when the family realized that IDF soldiers had entered theneighboring Saadi family home. The Shalabi family went to their backyard to check what washappening next door, and were met by a group of IDF soldiers who instructed them to exit theirhome from the front and come over to the Saadi family home.

The seventeen people staying at the Shalabi home all went over to the Saadi home, and both Abdal-Karim Saadi and Wadah Shalabi were carrying infants in their hands. When the grouparrived at the Saadi home, the soldiers told the men to give the infants to their wives andordered all the women and children to go inside the house. Remaining outside where Abdal-Karim Saadi, Wadah Shalabi, and Wadahs sixty-three-year-old father, Fati Shalabi.

Fati Shalabi, the only survivor of the incident, explained how his son and his neighbor weresoon shot down by the IDF soldiers, apparently because they mistook a back brace Abd al-KarimSaadi was wearing for an explosive belt:

They asked us to lift our shirts, to check for explosives. We were facing the soldiers, therewas one and one half meters between me and my son [and Abd al-Karim] and two meters between us andthe soldiers. The soldiers were standing a bit above us.

When they asked us to lift our shirts, they noticed something on Abd al-Karims body. They weretalking to each other, saying, What is this, what is this? Abd al-Karims sister later toldme that he had some brace for pain. The soldiers were named Gaby and David. Gaby said, Killthem, kill them!I understand Hebrew because I worked twenty years in Israel.

They started shooting and we fell to the ground. It was about 6:15 p.m. The ground was not flat,it was on an incline. The blood of the others was leaking down between my legs. I was all the way onthe left side, and the blood was soaking my clothes, so they thought that I was dead. Twosoldiers shot at us, but Gaby was in charge.

After they shot us, they stayed for more than one hour, searching the houses. They walked overuswe were just in between the houses. I made myself as I was dead.

Fati Shalabi remained motionless until the soldiers left, and then made sure that the two menwere dead before running home. He hid in his home until 4:00 a.m., when he rejoined his family atthe Saadi home. They covered the bodies of the men with a blanket, and the bodies remainedthere until April 17, when hospital workers could finally reach them and bury them at thehospital.

Fathiya Saadi, Abd al-Karims thirty-year-old sister, corroborated the account of FatiShalabi during a separate interview with Human Rights Watch. Fathiya recounted how a largegroup of soldiers had entered their home, and then ordered the Shalabi family to come over tothe Saadi home. She heard the gunshots from inside the home:

Wadah and Abd al-Karim were holding Wadahs babies, and the soldiers told them to give thebabies to their mothers. All of the women entered into one room. Some soldiers were stillinside and some outside. Then we heard the sound of shooting outsidethe Israeli soldiers[inside the house] thought some resistance had attacked and took up positions inside thehouse. One of the soldiers started shouting, David, David, and something I did notunderstand.

After the shooting, the soldiers inside were nervous, and refused to allow any of the familymembers to go near the area where the two men had been shot. They refused to allow one of thechildren to use the bathroom near the shooting area. When the soldiers left, they locked thewhole family into one room and ordered them not to go outside: They were being gentle with us,because they knew what they had done. They closed the doors and windows, and told us to go insideone room. They asked us to go inside and lock the door. On the outside, the soldiers attempted totie the door close with a piece of rope they found.

After escaping from the room, Fathiya Saadi found her brother and neighbor dead outside: Itook the head of Abd al-Karim and there was a big hole in his head. Wadah also had a big hole in hishead.

Shooting of Munir Wishahi and Mariam Wishahi, April 6

The Wishahi family lives in a small house near the entrance of the Jenin camp, close to the mainhospital in Jenin. At about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 6, sixty-year-old Issa Wishahi andhis fifty-eight-year-old wife, Mariam Wishahi, were drinking tea in their kitchen whenfighting erupted around their house. A tank began moving in their direction, and startedshooting towards their area. A bomb hit their home, filling the rooms with smoke. The familyopened the windows and doors to let the smoke out. There were no Palestinian gunmen inside theWishahi home, according to Issa Wishahi.

Their eighteen-year-old son Munir Wishahi saw the tanks coming towards their home. He becameafraid and decided to run away: When he saw the tanks coming and all of the shooting, he said,They are going to kill us, and ran outside the house. Soon after Munir left the house, he wasshot by the advancing Israeli forces. His parents heard him yell out, Im wounded! and thensaw him being brought to the hospital by local youngsters. Munir died on the way to thehospital.

After Munir was shot, the IDF continued to shell the Wishahi home for at least thirty minutes,although its only inhabitants were the elderly couple. Then Mariam was wounded when a tankshell hit the kitchen, spraying her with shrapnel and causing a serious head wound. For thenext day and a half, the elderly Issa Wishahi desperately attempted to obtain medicalassistance for his severely wounded wifethe couple had been married for thirty-eight yearsand had ten children. However, the Israeli soldiers repeatedly prevented ambulances fromreaching the home, despite the fact that the Wishahi home is located only a few hundred metersfrom Jenins main hospital, and Mariam died of her wounds around 11:00 p.m. the next day (seebelow, Lack of Access to Medical Care). The death of Mariam Wishahi appears to have been dueto the deliberate denial of medical assistance and as such warrants investigation as apossible war crime. Information about the death of Munir Wishahi suggests he was shot whilerunning away unarmed and requires investigation.

Bombing of Yusra Abu Khurj, April 6

Yusra Abu Khurj, a sixty-year-old mentally impaired woman, lived in a one-room apartment onthe top floor of her family home, located near the entrance of the refugee camp, just abouttwenty meters away from the home of the Wishahi family. Her nephew Abd al-Karim Khorjexplained how his aunt used to have a habit of standing by the window, singing or sometimesshouting. He believes that his aunt was fired upon in that position from a helicopter onFriday, April 6 at 6:00 a.m.

I was in the first floor apartment. When the missile hit, we felt it, and we came to the thirdfloor and saw the missile there [it had come through the ceiling] and we knew that Yusra must bedead. I came upstairs, to try to be sure, but we couldnt come in because the helicopters werestill in the sky, so we went back downstairs. The fifth day of the attack, soldiers occupied thefirst three floors of the building, we asked to come take her body, to send it to the hospital,but they refused to let us.

Only on April 17 could the family remove the decomposed body of Yusra for burial. When HumanRights Watch viewed the room, damage indicated that the projectile had entered through thewindow and passed through the floor to the apartment below. Abd al-Karim Khorj told HumanRights Watch that although there were fighters in the neighboring district of Hawashin area,there was no activity at the time.

According to the family, there were no Palestinian fighters in or near their house at the timethe helicopter fired on the home. Human Rights Watch reseclosely inspected the Abu Khorjhome, and did not find any suggestion, from sandbags or spent cartridges for example, thatPalestinian militants had used the home. The killing of an unarmed civilian in a situationwhere no combat was taking place requires a war crimes investigation.

Shooting of Nizar Mutahin, April 6

On Friday, April 5, a group of some fifty IDF soldiers entered the home of the Mutahin family,checked the house and decided to remain in the house for the night. According toforty-two-year-old Hattam Mutahin, They put all of us in one room and no-one was allowed tomove. We needed permission to even go to the bathroom. The next morning, at about 10:00 a.m. onSaturday, April 6, the soldiers announced that civilians had to leave the houses in theneighborhood because the IDF was planning to demolish some of the houses. Hattam Mutahinexplained how her cousin, twenty-two-year-old Nizar Mutahin, attempted to run away whilethe soldiers were checking the mens clothes and was instantly shot down by the soldiers:

The soldiers separated the women and the men. They asked the men to take off their upper clothesand put their hands on their heads. Nizar didnt wait until they took off their clothes, hetried to run away because he was afraid. They immediately shot him. He tried to run and was shotin the head.

It is unclear why Nizar tried to run away. Given the fact that the IDF had previously checked allof the men in the home and had spent the night in the home, it is extremely unlikely that Nizar wasarmed at the time of the shooting. According to his family, he was not involved in anyPalestinian militant movement, was not a wanted person, and had never been imprisoned. Themere attempt by an unarmed civilian who does not pose any immediate threat to the soldiersinvolved does not automatically make that person a military target. The killing of NizarMutahin warrants investigation.

The Bulldozing Death of Jamal Fayid, April 6

Jamal Fayid, aged thirty-seven, lived with seventeen other family members in the Jurratal-Dahab area of the camp, next to the Hawashin district. Fayid, disabled from birth, couldnot speak, eat, or move without assistance. For the first two days the family shelteredthemselves from the fighting in a small room beside the kitchen. Other relatives had joinedthem there for safety.

Shooting around the house and from IDF helicopters intensified on the afternoon of the secondday, April 4. On April 5, the house was hit by a missile and the second and third floors began toburn. Fayids family tried to run onto the street from the main door, but were forced back whenFaziya Muhammad, an elderly aunt, was shot in the shoulder just before she reached the door.They broke a side window and climbed out, but were unable to lift Fayid through the window. Theyran down the stairs shouting at the soldiers to hold their fire. The family then ran towards anIDF position in a house diagonally opposite. An IDF medic briefly treated Muhammads injury,and the family eventually made their way to Fayids uncles house a short distance away.

Early the next day, April 6, Fayids mother and sister returned home to check Fayidswell-being. He was unharmed. Fayids sister told how she and her mother ran to IDF soldiers inthe street to ask permission to retrieve him:

We tried to beg the soldiers that there was a paralyzed man in there. We even showed them hisidentity card. The ones on the street told us to go away. So we ran to [soldiers in] a neighboringhouse and said the same. We begged and begged. So eventually they let five women into the houseand try to carry him out.

Fayids mother, aunt, sister, and two neighbors entered the house. Shortly afterwards theyheard the sound of a bulldozer approaching:

It came and began to destroy the house. We could hear people on the street shouting, Stop!There are women inside the house! Stop! The soldiers even knew we were in there because theyhad said we could go into the house and get Jamal out.

Despite the shouting, the bulldozer continued. The women ran out as the house swayed andcrumbled around them, crushing the paralyzed Fayid in the rubble. The soldier in thebulldozer cursed at them, calling them bitches. The women ran into another house for safety.The IDF medic who had helped them the day before raged and swore at the bulldozer driver.

The women stayed in the area for three days, and then returned again to the rubble when theincursion had ended. At night we slept somewhere else, and during the day we came here to findhim. We looked all day yesterday, but we could not find him. Fayids body was recovered fromthe rubble on April 21, fifteen days after the house was demolished on top of him. It isdifficult to see what military goal could have been furthered or what legitimateconsideration of urgent military necessity could be put forward to justify the crushing todeath of Jamal Fayid without giving his family the opportunity to remove him from his home.This case requires investigation as a possible war crime.

The Shooting of Jamal al-Sabbagh, April 6

Jamal al-Sabbagh was a thirty-three year-old diabetic. He lived in the al-Damaj area of thecamp with Nadia, his wife, and three children. His house was close to heavy fighting during thefirst two days of the incursion. As the helicopter fire intensified on the second day, April 4,the family broke down two internal doors and escaped to the home of Nadias uncle, two housesaway.

The air attack intensified at 2:00 a.m. the following morning, April 5, and the family ran ontothe road for safety. The al-Sabbagh home was hit by a missile: the family watched it burn.Al-Sabbaghs wife told Human Rights Watch that no armed Palestinians had been present intheir house.

The next day, on April 6, an IDF tank came down the street, with soldiers calling vialoudspeakers for all men in the area to come out of their houses and onto the street. Al-Sabbaghcomplied with the call and walked into the street at around 6:00 p.m. His wife watched from thedoorway as, according to instructions, he raised his shirt, said his full name, and strippedbriefly to his underpants. The soldiers instructed him to report with other men to the squareat the health clinic. Al-Sabbagh told them he was a diabetic and could not stay out in the cold.The soldiers allowed him to bring his medication and shirt with him in a black plastic bag.

Ibrahim Z. (not his real name), a sixteen-year-old neighbor, walked with al-Sabbagh to thehealth clinic. When they reached the square beside the clinic, they were ordered to lie on theground. Ibrahim had seen al-Sabbagh talking to the soldiers about his diabetes shortlybeforehand. He was still carrying his shirt and medication in the black bag.

Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch:

“We lay down. After that they told us to stand up and told Jamal to put his bag away. They wanted himto put it on the ground. He did. They told us to take off our trousers. While we were taking ourtrousers off, they shot him.”

According to Ibrahim, the soldiers fired two bullets: one at al-Sabbagh and one at him, a fewmeters away. The bullets missed Ibrahim, but struck al-Sabbagh.

I did not see who shot me, it was night. Everyone else lay down when they heard the shots. Theysounded very close, about five to ten meters away. When I heard the shots I threw myself on theground.

Ibrahim heard al-Sabbagh recite the shahada [the Muslim declaration of faith, customarilyrecited before dying]. Al-Sabbagh then fell silent.

Ten minutes later a group of eleven Palestinian men arrived. They were ordered to strip totheir underwear and crouch in front of the soldiers. The soldiers then tied their hands, one byhand, beginning from the right-hand side. The hands of the last three men were not tied.Instead, they were ordered to carry al-Sabbaghs body inside the clinic building. They triedto put the body in a large refrigerator, but it would not fit. The last thing Ibrahim saw beforebeing taken away for questioning was a group of IDF soldiers putting al-Sabbaghs body undtheclinic stairs. An investigation is required to determine why someone who was at the timedirectly under the control of the IDF and obeying orders to strip off his clothes was shot todeath.

The shooting of Ali Muqasqas, April 7

Ali Muqasqas, a street vendor, lived in the al-Saha area of the Jenin camp. Muqasqas was at homeon Sunday 7 April with his six children, aged between four and twenty-four. His wife, anemployee at al-Razi hospital in Jenin city, was one of some thirty hospital employees trappedin the hospital by the curfew and unable to return home.

On the second day of the incursion the fighting drew closer to the Muqasqas familys house, andthe aerial attack intensified. A missile hit the house immediately opposite and woundedeight people insidesome of them fighters, others civilians seeking shelter after their ownhouses had been damaged. The family tried to assist those inside. They called an ambulance,but were told it could not come. Alis son Hassan recalled that the Palestinian Red CrescentSociety (PRCS) told him that we have tried to come. But the soldiers have shot at us and haveeven arrested our people. Family members dragged some of the injured to a safer location, butwere forced to leave others behind.

The following day, April 7, Ali Muqasqas was taking shelter with his family in the front room ofthe house. The room had no access to running water. When the noonday call to prayer sounded, AliMuqasqas wanted to pray and went outside to fetch water from the tanks on the western side of thehouse to perform his ablutions. Muqasqas was aware of an IDF position on the eastern side of thehouse. He did not realize that another soldier was at a window near the north-eastern side ofthe house, roughly twenty meters from the water tank.

Muqasqas opened the door and left. His son, Hassan, told Human Rights Watch:

Just afterwards we heard him shouting, Ive been shot! Ive been shot! Yes, we heard thesound of the bullets. It was the sound of a sniper rifle. This was the seventh incursion intoJenin; we know the sound by now. My father ran to hide under a set of low concrete stairs on hisleft, about two meters away.

Muqasqas was shot twice in the abdomen. Hassan and his brothers immediately telephoned theirneighbor, Mahmud Talib, to come and help them save their father. Talib agreed, and Hassan ranto open the courtyard door for him. But as he opened the door the soldier fired again, missingHassan but wounding Talib in the side. Talib told Human Rights Watch: I went to help him. Therewas a soldier here in my neighbors house, and when he saw me he shot me. Whenever he saw anythingmove, he shot it. Talib showed Human Rights Watch a medical certificate stating that he hadhad a bullet and shrapnel removed from his chest. Hassan helped drag Talib to a smallstoreroom, and then smashed the storeroom window. Hassan, his brothers, sisters, and Talibescaped through the window. Hassan and the children ran to their uncles house, knowing theirfather was almost certainly dead, but not sure: [W]e knew my father was under the staircase,but he was silent. He didnt make any sound after the first scream.

Hassan and the children stayed at their uncles house until the incursion ended. TheInternational Committee of the Red Cross confirmed their fathers death to them, eight daysafter he was shot, and removed the remains for burial. Under no circumstances can the breach ofa curfew by an unarmed civilian going to fetch water be seen as a hostile act. This shootingshould be investigated.

Shooting of Muhammad Abu Sabaa, April 9

The home of Muhammad Abu Sabaa, aged sixty-five, was located in the Hawashim neighborhood ofthe Jenin refugee camp, which was completely bulldozed by Israeli forces during theiroffensive in the camp. On April 9, at about 6:00 a.m., the family noticed that Israelibulldozers had moved into their area of the camp and had begun bulldozing homes withoutwarning. The bulldozers began demolishing the Sabaa home while the family was still locatedinside.

Muhammad Abu Sabaa, the patriarch of the family, went outside to reason with the operator ofthe bulldozer who was destroying his home. He explained to the bulldozer operator that hisfamily was still inside, and begged the bulldozer operator to suspend the demolition. Thebulldozer operator agreed, and began leaving the area. Muhammads forty-three-year-oldson Samia Abu Sabaa told how his father was shot dead by an Israeli soldier as he returned to hishome:

When the bulldozer left the place, a sniper shot my father. He was inside the house, but becausehalf of the house had been destroyed [by the bulldozer] he was visible [from outside]. He wasshot in the chest with one or two bullets. It was early in the morning, about 7:30 a.m. or so. Myfather died instantly. We put his body inside the room.

Soon after the killing of Muhammad Abu Sabaa, the remaining family members noticed groups ofcivilians moving in the streets holding white sheets. The civilians told them thatbulldozers were leveling houses in the al-Wahsin area of the camp, and that everone whoremained in their homes would risk being killed. So the Sabaa family members decided to leavealso: We left my father[s body] inside, and we went outside. At the entrance to the camp, thecivilians were met by IDF soldiers, who separated the women and children from the men, let thewomen and children proceed to the hospital, and tied up and arrested the men. When he wasreleased from detention, Samia Abu al-Sabaa found his home completely demolished and begansearching for his fathers body in the rubble:

We found the body two days ago [on April 18]. I came back and recognized where our house used tobe. We brought the bulldozer. When I saw the bed and the bones, I told the bulldozer to stop and westarted digging with our hands. The body was in pieces.

The willful killing of an unarmed civilian in a non-combat situation is a violation ofinternational humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime.

Killing of Nayif Abd al-Jabr and Amid Fayid, April 10

The Abd al-Jabr and Fayid families live outside the Jenin refugee camp, in the al-Marah areaof Jenin city. On April 10, at about 2:00 p.m., two tanks moved into the area. At the time,nineteen-year-old Nayif Abd al-Jabr was visiting the home of his friend, twenty-year-oldAmid Fayid. Nayifs father attempted to call the Fayid home to warn his son it was toodangerous to come home, but the boys had already left. The families of both men and theirfriends vigorously denied that the two men were involved with Palestinian militantorganizations. Normally, when a Palestinian militant is killed, the family and friends takegreat pride in his martyrdom and make no effort to deny the militant history of the deceased.

Muhammad Shalabi, aged twenty, was also with the two young men, and explained what hadhappened:

We were at our house with Amid, Nayif, and [another young man]. We were just sitting aroundwhen we heard the noise of tanks and became frightened. When we felt it had become toodangerous, they decided to go back to their homes. I tried to persuade them from leaving,because it was very dangerous, but they insisted they had to go home.

We went out of the house, all four of us together. We were walking closely together. [The otheryoung man] left us and went home, so it was the three of us. Nayif and Amid were standing in frontof a store, and I went down to check if there were any tanks down on the street.

Then the shooting started. I thought it was from the tanks, but then I realized it was from thehelicopters. When I heard the shooting, I went to hide. [After the attack], when we foundAmid, he was still breathing. It took maybe thirty minutes to get to the hospital. The firsttime, he was just wounded in his leg, then he tried to escape and hide. He was shot in the head fromthe back.

Muhammad Shalabi did not see the wounding of Nayif Abd al-Jabr, who was hiding behind anothercar, but Nayif was later found mortally wounded in the same as Amid. Muhammad Shalabi and afriend carried the mortally wounded Amid to the hospital, where he soon died from his wounds.When Qassim Abd al-Jabr heard about the shooting of his son, he rushed to the area with his wifeand found his wounded son:

When I reached there, I found some people surrounding Nayif, and giving him first aid. He wasbleeding from his mouth, but still alive. We took him and put him on the floor of a store. Wecalled the ambulance to come but the driver was prevented from reaching the area. The firetruck also came to try and help but were also preventedthe IDF soldiers prevented them fromreaching the area.

We sat with Nayif until 2:00 a.m. The whole area was surrounded by tanks and Apache[helicopters] were in the sky. The area was also inspected by IDF with dogs. They made everyoneget outside and inspected their clothes, from about 11:30 p.m. to midnight. The Israelis saidthere were four people there, they had shot and killed one and wounded another, and werelooking for the two remaining and the injured one.

At 2:00 a.m., the Israeli forces finally allowed a fire truck to enter the area and evacuateNayif to the hospital. Nayif died from his wounds at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 11.

During the attack, civilians in the neighboring homes were also injured from the fighting.Fifteen-year-old Rina Hassan was one of the wounded. She was still bedridden when she toldHuman Rights Watch: The helicopters came over the area and started shooting. I was in my roomwhen the shooting started. A big bomb from the helicopter fell outside on the veranda and fivepieces of the bomb hit metwo pieces are still in my lungs, and two are in my shoulder. She wasevacuated to the hospital on a home-made stretcher by four youngsters from the neighborhood.The killing of two civilians attempting to return to their homes requires investigation.

Killing of Kamal Zghair, April 10

Kamal Zghair was a fifty-seven-year-old, impoverished wheelchair-bound invalid. He sleptin a backroom of a gas station in Jenin, near the Ibrahim Haddad factory. Almost every day, hewent in his wheelchair to a neighboring industrial warehouse where his friend,fifty-year-old Durar Hussein, washed his clothes for him, repaired his wheelchair,provided him with food, and also gave him some respite from his lonely existence.

On Wednesday, April 10, Kamal Zghair came to visit his friend Durar Hussein as usual. DurarHussein explained how he washed his friends clothes and fed him, and then wheeled him to themain road when he wanted to return to his room at about 4:00 p.m. Soon thereafter, Kamal Zghairwas killed:

That day, he came to me in the morning as he came everyday. I cleaned his clothes and put them outto dry. At about 4:00 or 4:15 p.m., I pushed his wheelchair to the street. He continued to makehis way to the gas station. I had put a white flag on his wheelchair to make sure that everyonecould see him from far away.

I waited about ten minutes, because it takes him some time to reach the end of the factory[grounds]. I heard tanks coming from the west. So I got worried about him, because he was in thestreet. Then they started shooting from the tanks. I knew exactly where he was, and theshooting was there. At first, I thought they were shooting to tell him to move out of the street.

The tanks came nearer and it was too dangerous to remain outside, so I went inside. The tanksstopped for about 45 minutes at the edge of the factory [grounds]. The tanks didnt leave thearea, they remained, so I couldnt leave the compound to check on him. The tanks remained thereall night.

The next morning, the curfew on Jenin was briefly lifted. Durar Hussein immediately went tocheck on his friend:

I went by foot, and in the place I had expected, I found his wheelchair, crushed by the tanks. Isaw the wheelchair but not his body. I ran to the gas station where he sleeps, yelling, Kamal!Kamal! I entered his room but could not find anyone.

I went back to where the wheelchair was crushed, looking here and there. I had seen something inthe grass [from the factory], and suddenly remembered this. So I went to check and in betweenthe grass I found his body.

You couldnt recognize the body. His face was smashed and his legs were crushed. I onlyrecognized him because of the socks that I had cleaned the day before.

Human Rights Watch went to inspect the site of the killing and found the crushed andbullet-ridden wheelchair by the side of the road, its white flag still attached. The stretchof road on which Kamal Zghair was killed was completely open with excellent visibility, so itis unlikely that the IDF soldiers who shot him saw anything other than an elderly,wheelchair-bound man. Although Kamal Zghair was outside during a curfew period, the use oflethal force cannot be justified to enforce a curfew. This case raises concerns that seriousviolations of international humanitarian law have been committed, and thus warrantscriminal investigation.

Killing of Faris Zaiban, April 11

The Zaiban family lives in the al-Maslah neighborhood of Jenin city, outside of the Jeninrefugee camp. During the IDF operation at the refugee camp, the entire city was placed under acomplete curfew. On the morning of April 11, civilians in Jenin city were informed that thecurfew would be lifted for a few hours, allowing them to replenish vital food and othersupplies.

When the curfew was lifted, forty-two-year-old Inad Zaiban gave his fourteen-year-old sonFaris some money and told him to go to buy some groceries. Faris Zaiban left the house, and wentwith a group of women and two other young boys to a nearby grocery store located near theIbrahimi school. Eight-year-old Yusuf A. (not his real name) came along with Faris Zaiban,and told Human Rights Watch what had happened on the way to the store:

Me, Faris, one other boy and some women were together. Faris told me to go back home, but Irefused. Then we were walking towards a tank [located seventy-five meters away]. We saw thetank turning towards us. I was afraid, and Faris said, Go home, but I refused.

Then the tank started shooting. Faris and another boy ran away. I fell down. Then I saw Farisfalling down. I thought that he had just tripped. But then I saw blood on the ground. I went toFaris, I thought he was just asleep. Two women came and carried Faris to a car.

The soldiers didnt say anything before they started shooting. There were no men with us, justboys and women. We didnt throw any rocks at the tank.

Inad Zaiban was shopping at the market when he heard his son had been shot and taken to thehospital. He rushed to the hospital, but soon was informed that his son was dead. Human RightsWatch visited the scene of the shooting, which is in a street with good visibility. Thesoldiers had a clear line of fire from where their tank was parked in the middle of the road. Theuse of lethal force against a group of civilians following the lifting of a curfew, and where nofighting is taking place, constitutes a deliberate attack on unarmed civilians and is a warcrime.
Human Shielding and the Use of Civilians for Military Purposes

IDF soldiers in Jenin engaged in the practice of human shielding, forcing Palestiniancivilians to serve as shields to protect them from Palestinian militants. The practice ofhuman shielding is specifically outlawed by international humanitarian law. The inappropriate use of civilians for other military purposes was also widespread during the IDFoperation in Jenin. In almost every case where IDF soldiers entered civilian homes in thecamp, the residents told Human Rights Watch that the IDF soldiers were accompanied byPalestinian civilians.

Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: The presence of a protected person may notbe used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations. Theauthoritative Commentary refers to this provision in the following terms: During the lastWorld War public opinion was shocked by certain instances (fortunately rare) ofbelligcompelling civilians to serve as a protective screen for the fighting troops. Theprohibition is expressed in an absolute form and applies to the belligerents own territoryas well as occupied territory, to small sites as well as wide areas.

Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields

Among the most serious human shielding cases documented in Jenin by Human Rights Watch werethe cases of four brothers, a father and his fourteen-year-old son, and two other men who wereused to shield IDF soldiers from attack by Palestinian militants while the IDF soldiersoccupied a large house located directly across from the main UNRWA compound in the camp. Inseparate interviews with Human Rights Watch, the victims described how they were forced tostand on the balcony of the house to deter Palestinian gunmen from firing in the direction ofthe IDF soldiers. The Palestinian civilians also described how the IDF soldiers had forcedthem to stand in front of the soldiers when the soldiers fired at Palestinian gunmen, whileresting their rifles on the shoulders of the Palestinian civilians.

Imad Gharaib, aged thirty-four, was one of the four brothers. On Saturday, April 6, at about6:00 a.m., a group of thirty to forty IDF soldiers entered the Gharaib family home, and forcedthe Gharaib brothers to walk in front of them as they searched the home. One of the IDF soldiersabused Imad, beating him with his rifle and threatening to shoot him if he did not reveal wherehe had hidden his gun (Imad said he does not possess a gun):

He asked me if I had any guns. I said, No, I am only here with my family. He started beating mewith the back of his gun, hitting me many times, insisting that I had a gun. He [then]threatened to shoot me and put the gun to my face. Then he moved the gun a bit and shot thetelevision.

After the soldiers had inspected the home, they tied the men up and, half an hour later, walkedthem over to a large neighboring house in which the IDF had set up a temporary base; the house waslocated directly across from the main UNRWA compound. The men were forced to stand outside,facing the Palestinian gunfire:

They ordered us to walk in front of them. There was some shooting at the [IDF] soldiers [byPalestinian militants higher up in the camp.] They started pushing us and brought us down toanother house. There, they put us on the veranda where we could be seen [by the Palestiniangunmen]. The soldiers were sitting inside the salon. We were facing the shooting, thesoldiers did this to protect themselves. We could be clearly seenif the fighters saw us theywould not shoot.

Kamal Tawalbi, a forty-three-year-old father of fourteen children, and hisfourteen-year-old son were also taken to the same house and forced to stand facing thePalestinian gunfire. The IDF soldiers also placed them at the windows and forced them to standin front of the soldiers as the soldiers shot at Palestinian gunmen in the camp:

They took me and my son. They put me in one corner and [my son] in the other corner [of thebalcony]. The soldier put his gun on my shoulder. I was facing the soldier, we were face to face,with my back to the street. Then he started shooting. This situation lasted for three hours. Myson was in the same positionhe was facing the soldier, the soldier had his gun on his shoulder,and was shooting.

The soldiers also treated Kamal Tawalbi and the other men with cruelty. During his interviewwith Human Rights Watch, Kamal Tawalbiwho had been taken from his home by the IDF soldierswhile his home was burning from a helicopter strikebroke down in tears as he recounted how theIDF soldiers had tried to make him believe that his family had been killed while he was incustody:

I heard the noise from my family, I was very worried. Then, another missile hit the house. Istarted screaming, My children, my children! [One of the soldiers] said, Shut up, becauseyour family is dead, the house collapsed on them. He was a Bedouin from Beersheva, his name wasYusi. I started crying after this. When Yusi saw I was crying, he kicked me in the leghe stompedon my foot and hurt it badly.

Both men recalled how the soldiers had forced the men to lie face down on a floor covered withbroken glass, and had tied their hands painfully tight behind their backs with plastichandcuffs. The men were then arrested and taken to a military camp for interrogation, andsubsequently released at the village of Rumanah.

Faisal Abu Sariya, a forty-two-year-old schoolteacher, also was used as a human shield by theIDF and forced to carry out dangerous tasks. Soldiers entered Abu Sariyas home on the secondday of the Israeli incursion, at about 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 4, accompanied by AbuSariyas neighbor:

Early, at 4:00 a.m., my daughter woke me and told me there were some people at the door. I openedthe door and one of my neighbors, Arafat, told me the soldiers had sent him to tell me that thesoldiers were behind my home and wanted us all to go into one room of the house.

Abu Sariya went back inside his home, woke up his family and made all of them go to one room. Thesoldiers then entered, and asked Abu Sariyas twelve-year-old son to enter the various roomsof the house and open all the dressers inside. A soldier set up a position at one window, and thenkicked over the television that was in his way. The next morning, the soldiers ordered AbuSariya to accompany them:

The next morning they told me to join them. I asked them, Am I wanted [for arrest]? Are youtaking me to jail? He said he just wanted me to go next door and they would release me. My wife andchildren were crying, begging them to release me.

For the next two days, Abu Sariya was coerced into accompanying the soldiers, to enter homeseven before the IDF soldiers sent in their bomb-sniffing dogs, and to march in front of thesoldiers as they moved in the streets of Jenin refugee camp:

They pointed a house out to me. They said, Go knock on the door, tell all the people to go in oneroom, and come back. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. They put a small bomb the sizeof a pack of cigarettes on the door and opened it. They ordered me to go inside. I checked andfound no one inside. Then they asked me to go out and sent in the dog. Then, when the dog came back,they went inside.

Then we went to another house. Whenever they wanted to move, [a soldier] would grab me by thecollar, put me in front of him, and move like this. They used me like this between housesin casethere was some shooting, I would die first.

I asked them, Please release me, you promised me [to go to] just one house, let me go. At leastfive times a day I would ask them. They would always say that they would release me once theyfound a substitute.

On Saturday, April 6, after two days with the soldiers, Abu Sariya was ordered to go knock on thedoor of a home by the soldiers, while the soldiers hid themselves on the opposite side of thestreet. As he ran across the street, another group of IDF soldiers located on the roofsoverhead opened fire on Abu Sariya and seriously wounded him in the leg. The two groups of IDFsoldiers then began arguing. Rather than taking the seriously wounded Abu Sariya to thehospital, the soldiers provided him with some first aidbandaging the woundand thenordered four Palestinian youngsters to carry him away. Unable to reach the hospital, thePalestinian youngsters were forced to leave Abu Sariya at a private home in theHawashin/Damaj area of the camp. Abu Sariya was forced to stay four more days without medicaltreatment, unable to leave because of snipers in the area, until IDF soldiers announced onTuesday, April 9, that everyone in the area had to leave their homes.

Aziz Taha, aged twenty-six, was arrested from his house in al-Dahab district on Sunday, April7, at approximately 2:00 p.m., when IDF soldiers burst through a hole they had bored in the wallfrom his neighbors garden. Blindfolded, his hands were tied with plastic ligatures beforehe was pushed back through the hole in twall the way they had come. He was put on the veranda andhis blindfold was taken off; he faced up the hillside into the camp. He took Human Rights Watchto the location and explained what had happened to him.

Aziz Taha was then taken through a maze of interconnected houses, eventually reaching anassembly point on the western edge of the camp. The soldiers arresting him forced him atgunpoint to walk ahead of them, particularly when crossing exposed alleys or in othervulnerable positions. On multiple occasions, there were firefights and Aziz Taha was caughtin the crossfire. Aziz Taha retraced his steps together with Human Rights Watch, pointing outthe route burrowed through neighbors houses and places where he was beaten. Retracing thesteps through holes bored in the walls, the houses inhabitants pointed out the extensivedamage and vandalism that had been done by the soldiers.

Aziz showed Human Rights Watch one alley where he was particularly exposed during a battle:

He made me walk alone up the alley, to the left. Then as we came around the corner, the soldierhid. Shooting came from above, I dont know who was firing. During this time he made me stand infront of a house, for fifteen minutes the battle was going on and the soldier was hiding.

In Lutfi Badawis house, again Aziz was made to stand on a terrace, exposed to the north to firecoming from the lower part of the camp near the UNRWA building. There was shooting, it wascoming towards me but I dont know from where.

The entire journey, a mere 500 meters as the crow flies, took Aziz and the soldier twelve hours.When he reached the western edge of the camp with the soldiers, Aziz Taha was forced to take offhis clothes and was severely beaten.

I was in my underwear, nothing else. They put me in a house and let me sit down. They made fun of me,spit on me, and starting asking me questions, but when I answered they would just mock me. WhileI was there, one soldier urinated on me, he cursed at me, but this is nothing, because then he didmore. I have nine scars on my legs, so when I stripped they saw them and said you were fighting twomonths ago, although the scars were much older. They started beating me then with somethingmetal, it was very painful. They also used the plastic ligatures they were using as handcuffs.They [tied a bunch of them together into a whip] and used them to beat me on the soles of my feet.

Aziz Taha was then transported to Salem, where he was detained for four days before beingreleased in Rumana village.

Sixty-five-year-old Lutfiya Abu Zeid told Human Rights Watch that IDF soldiers twice tookher from the room where she was taking shelter to use her as a human shield. The first time was atapproximately 5:00 p.m. on April 6, when they made her go with them and open doors as theychecked a neighboring house. They returned at about 9:00 p.m. the same day; Lutfiya had juststarted to pray. The soldier said come here and I said, who me? He said yes. The soldiers tookher by her shoulders and held her in front of them as they exited the house and were joined byother soldiers. They took Lutfiya onto the roof and left her in plain sight as a battle began.

About forty soldiers had come into the [courtyard], they were wearing goggles so that theycould see at night, it was scary, like they were going to go swim. They took me to the stairs up tothe new house, it isnt finished yet. I said I was really scared, that I couldnt walk. They putme on the roof, and [entered that house through the wall].. They started an attack, and I feltlike I should go home. Every five minutes there was a rocket, they didnt care what they wereshooting. They were in a house, the neighbors house, but they left me where the helicopterscould see me, but they were safe. I stayed there for about 10 minutes, and then I got scared andleft.

The soldiers did not object when Lutfiya went back downstairs.

Muhammad Qataish, aged twenty-four, lived near the camp entrance, above the governmenthospital. At about 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 5, Qataish and his family were sheltering fromhelicopter and other fire in the living room of his house. IDF soldiers broke down the back doorand entered the house. In response to the soldiers orders, Qataish raised his hands, thenlifted his shirt and pulled down his trousers. He was then ordered to search the house, room byroom at gunpoint. Qataish was then ordered to search the neighboring house, his uncles, thesame way. After they had finished, all the young men were taken out of the house and lined upagainst a wall.

Qataish and his brother Khaled thought the soldiers were going to arrest them. To theirsurprise, the soldiers took them both onto the street, and formed one line of soldiers behindeach brother. Qataysh told Human Rights Watch:

We were lined up along the street, Khaled and myself, each with a line of soldiers behind us. Onesoldier was resting his M16 on Khaleds right shoulder. I was on Khaleds right. They marchedus from the house, along Hawakeen Street, into the middle of the camp, the Hawashin area. Theydid not say a word. Khaled asked them where we were going. The soldier said, If you make anynoise, well shoot you! It was about 4:30 p.m. There were about twenty to twenty-five soldierswith us.

After walking approximately twenty minutes, the soldiers stopped them at a house on the edgeof the Hawashin district. After attempting to force Khaled and then Qataish to enter thehouse, the soldiers were then fired upon by armed Palestinians. After an exchange of fire thesoldiers withdrew, but took the brothers with them. Back near his fathers house the soldierskicked Qataish and beat him with their rifle butts before taking the brothers into detention.The two brothers remained in detention for four days, during which they were fed once.

In a separate interview with Human Rights Watch Muhammad (not his real name), a Palestinianmilitant who participated in the fighting, corroborated Qataishs account. The Israeliswere in a trap, we could have killed them. But we would have had to kill the boys too. Theirbrother was with us and begged us not to. We had the chance to kill the twenty-five soldiers, butwe did not.

In an interview with the New York Times , a group of Israeli soldiers in Jenin admitted that theyhad used Palestinian civilians to shield themselves from attack by Palestinian gunmen.Yes, because of the snipers [we used Palestinian civilians], one of the soldiers stated,If the sniper sees his friend there, he wont shoot. A soldier also told the New York Timesthat they had used Palestinian civilians to open the doors of homes out of fear of booby-traps:We had a soldier who opened a door and was killed by a booby-trap that went off in his face. We letthem [Palestinian civilians] open the door. If he knows it is booby-trapped, he wont openit.

Use of Palestinian Civilians for Military Purposes

Human Rights Watch has previously documented the IDF practice of using Palestiniancivilians to assist military personnel and operations, a serious breach of internationalhumanitarian law. The use of civilians to assist military personnel and operations violatesa fundamental principle of IHL, civilian immunity. It also violates Israels obligation toprotect and respect civilian persons under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Suchpractices were widespread during the IDF operation in Jenin.

IDF soldiers forced Ibrahim Abu Raid, aged fifty-one, to accompany them for seven days, fromFriday, April 5, until Thursday, April 11. Abu Raid explained how the soldiers had forced himto do some of the most dangerous work during the operation:

They took me because I spoke Hebrew. I was with eighteen soldiers. They asked me to walk in frontof them [in the streets]. They asked me to knock on the doors because they were afraid ofbooby-traps. So they would hide behind the walls and make me knock on the door.

They made me knock on the doors. If there was no answer, they gave me a heavy crowbar to break thelocks. If I couldnt break the locks, they would explode it. After the explosion, they asked meto go inside first. After I was inside for five minutes, they would come inside. [That way,] incase an explosion happened, only I would be inside.

When I entered inside, they would ask me, Open this cupboard, open this door, check thisroom. I would do the inspection for them. They touched nothing, but would order me to do it.Only after I had opened everything did they start searching.

I told them that it was too dangerous to do this work. So they kept promising, OK, just work forus today and we will release you, but they kept making me do this work. They made me do it byforce, I had no choice.

Fifty-five year old Kamal Abu Salim was taken to open shops for soldiers after he fled his housein Hawashin in the early morning hours of April 8, as the bulldozers were approaching. Thesoldiers separated the men of the family out and detained them. When we left, they took the menand made us take off our clothes, and then threatened to shoot me. We were four, me, my brother,brother in law and 17-year old son. They made me take off my clothes, and wanted me to show themthe chicken shop down the road, they said to enter and open all the doors inside. They walked tothe neighboring Abu Nasr district, and although the others were allowed to sit down, Kamal wastaken aside to open the shops for the neighbors. He was fired upon by the soldiers. When I wentto do it he started to shoot me, between my legs. He said I was a terrorist, he just wanted tofrighten me, I guess. At the chicken shop, I had to open three doors of three shops there.Afterwards, the men were taken to the edge of the camp and detained briefly before beingreleased.

Tariq Fayid was arrested on April 5 from his house in Dahab quarter, the southwest hilltop areaof camp. That day, soldiers entered and first came to Fayyeds house with his thirty-sevenyear-old neighbor Khaled, who called out that there were soldiers with him and that theyshould all come out. They were detained for about two hours and then sent home. The followingday, Sunday April 6, Tariq Fayid was again arrested after soldiers, preceded by a localPalestinian, came to the door. He and his cousin were separated.

They took us to a house where some other men were who had been arrested. We were blindfolded,everyone was the same, and we were asked to turn to the wall. We had to kneel against the wall,handcuffed behind our backs, and were beaten with weapons. They asked who spoke Hebrew, and Isaid I did a little, because I wanted to find out about my wife and sons. They took me to openthree houses. They took off the blindfold, but my hands were still tied in front of me. Theyasked me to enter houses where they hadnt been. They asked me to go in and open all the doors andwindows. They just looked at the house, then told me to go to the next one, they just watched. Andthey would tell people to get out of the houses and then I had to go in front of the to check thehouses. Every group of soldiers had a map. The houses were numbered, and when they werefinished, they would mark that on their map.

Tariq was held for three days in a house in the neighborhood with thirty-five other men. OnTuesday April 9, he and the others were taken to the western edge of the camp. There, he wasseverely beaten:

They pulled me by the beard, threw garbage at me. They threw us on the ground and then drove a tankup to us, as if it was going to run us over, before turning around at the last minute. It wasnt atall safe. Some of the others were beaten badly, some were beaten so much they were unconscious.They beat me too, and they walked on top of me, they made me lay on the floor and walked on ourheads.

Israeli soldiers entered the home of the elderly Raja Tawafshi at about 6:00 p.m. onWednesday, April 3, and shot dead his elderly neighbor, Ahmad Hamduni (see above). After thekilling, the soldiers ordered Raja Tawafshi at gunpoint to walk in front of them while theysearched the home:

The soldier told me to go out. He put the gun on my back and they searched the house, pushing me infront of them. Around thirty soldiers came in, they searched all the rooms. Then they took meupstairs and started inspecting those rooms. I was still in the same situation, in front ofthem with the gun in my back. After they finished inspecting the second floor, they asked me togo with them to the third floor.

After searching the home, the IDF soldiers tied Raja Tawafshi to a chair for the night. The nextmorning, they again forced the elderly man to accompany them on searches of nearby homes:

[In the morning,] they freed me and asked me to stand up. They took me to my neighbors house forinspection. I was in front of them and they told me to knock on the door. I told them no-one washome. Then, they broke the door with an iron ramrod and got inside. For four houses, I was infront of them of them to inspect the houses. Then I told them, I cant go anymore because I amtired.

Said Abu Anas, aged thirty-four, lived in the Hawashin area of the Jenin refugee camp, andwas sifting through the rubble of his demolished home when he spoke to Human Rights Watch. Heexplained that a group of Israeli soldiers came to the house of his neighbor, wherefifty-three people were staying, on Saturday, April 6, at about 10:00 a.m. and ordered the mento go outside:

They tied us up and made us go open the doors of the homes. The soldiers took me and ordered me toopen a door. I tried to open the door, but couldnt. I then told them that I didnt want to[continue trying], that I have a heart condition and the door was too tough. They told me to restfor a minute [and used a bomb to open the door.]

Twenty-nine-year-old Asmahan Abu Murad was also ordered by the soldiers to go knock on herneighbors home. When they had come to Abu Murads home earlier in the day, the soldiers hadsimilarly been accompanied by a neighbor who had been ordered to knock on their door. BeforeAbu Murad had a chance to knock on her neighbors door, the soldiers had blown off the door,killing fifty-two-year-old Afaf Disuqi who had come to open the door.

On April 10, Lina Saadiya and her mother were in a house near the government hospital.Fighting had dwindled, and two young armed Palestinians whom Lina had previously seenfighting came unarmed to sleep in the house. The next morning a nearby soldier heard Linasmother crying out in her sleep, and ordered the inhabitants outside. The two men carriedLinas paralysed mother outside. A group of IDF soldiers stripped and bound them, and madethem lie on the ground before taking them back into the house. Three dogs accompanied the IDFsoldiers.

Lina and her mother were ordered into the neighboring bedroom.

The soldiers had three dogs. It sounds like they let the dogs at the captured men. I did not seeit, but I heart the boys screaming and shouting, and one saying he was bleeding. They [thesoldiers] shouted and cursed and the boys and asked if there were more resistance fighters.

Lina did not understand the entire conversation, since the soldiers were speaking in Hebrew,but she heard several shots fired in the room next door and the sound of the captured men askingthe soldiers to stop. Lina understood the soldiers wanted the captured fighters to lead themon their search through the houses.

One of them was crying, saying his feet were bleeding and asking them to take him to hospital.That was after the soldiers had asked them. At first the resistance boys refused, but then theboys went to take them. They did not want to go with the soldiers because they thought the otheryoung men would think they were IDF soldiers and shoot them. They said, It is better if youshoot us now. But the soldiers scared them with the dogs and by shooting into the walls, theboys went. I heard the soldiers outside saying, OK, now into the other room, now into thisroom. This is how I know they went.

In addition to the cases documented by Human RightsWatch, the practice of using civilians toassist military personnel and operations in Jenin has been widely reported on by theinternational media. For example, in an Associated Press story about the earlier HumanRights Watch report on the IDF use of civilians, the reporter added:

The Associated Press witnessed such an incident this week in Jenin refugee camp. A young boywho had been guiding reporters through the camp was detained by soldiers and he later said hehad been forced for three hours to knock on unknown houses. He said that only after he hadentered the houses were sniffer dogs sent in and then soldiers entered.
Medical and Humanitarian Access, and Attacks against Medical Personnel

Access to health care and emergency medical services have been key issues throughout thecurrent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, caused in part by the severe restrictions on freedomof movement instituted by the Israeli authorities since September 2000.

It is a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law that the wounded, sick, andinfirm are entitled to particular protection and respect during armed conflict. Israelsobligations to ensure medical access were succinctly expressed by Rene Kosirnik, head of thelocal ICRC delegation, in a press briefing in Jerusalem on April 22:

As long as Jenin refugee camp was occupied by the Israeli Defense Force, the firstresponsibility lies with the IDF to save lives. It is the responsibility of the forceconcerned to deliver services, to care for friend and foe. That is the rule.

Israel, having ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention, is obliged to respect and protect thewounded, as set out in article 16 of the Convention; emergency medical personnel, as set out inarticle 20; and to permit recognized national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to carryout their operations. During the period that the IDF directly controlled Jenin camp, Israelwas also obliged to ensure that the civilian population had adequate access to food andmedical supplies, as set out in articles 55 and 59.

The IDF incursion into Jenin began in the early hours of Wednesday, April 3. For the first dayand a half, ambulance crews of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) had access to thecamp. Some seven dead and twenty wounded were taken by the PRCS to the government hospital atthe camps edge during this period. From the afternoon of April 4, however, the IDF denied thePRCS crews access to both Jenin city and Jenin camp. The government hospital was sealed off bytwo IDF checkpoints on either side of its main entrance.

The director of the PRCS Jenin, Ibrahim Dababna, told Human Rights Watch how the PRCSinitially began to experience difficulties getting into the camp:

Whenever tanks saw the ambulances, they blocked their way. They also shot at them on severaloccasions. They knew those in the camp needed help, but the tanks at the entrance to the campforbade our passage. After this we went to the ICRC and asked them to urgently intervene.

After several hours, the ICRC called back and said that the Israeli authorities had informedthem there was no prohibition on PRCS access to the camp, and that PRCS ambulances were free togo there. This official position, however, was not reflected by the actions of soldiers on theground. The PRCS again tried to respond to the many calls for help it was receiving fromresidents within the camp but, Dr. Dababna said:

Whenever we sent ambulances the tanks would shoot at us and tell us to go back. We repeated thisseveral times: calling, being informed permission was granted, and then being shot at. It waslike they were tricking us. But there were so many injured and dead we just began to try anyway.

On April 7, PRCS ambulances resumed operations in Jenin City, though they were sometimesblocked by tanks and were subject to frequent searches. They continued to be denied access tothe refugee camp until April 15, eight days later. Human Rights Watch encountered two cases inwhich sick or injured civilians were treated by IDF medics or assisted to the hospital, butfound no evidence of any systematic IDF practice to provide emergency medical care itself.Injured Palestinian combatants, and the vast majority of injured civilians, wereeffectively denied medical access for the two-week incursion period. All hospitaladministrators, ambulance staff, and international humanitarian personnel interviewedby Human Rights Watch were in agreement that almost no injured persons from the camp werebrought to the hospitals by ambulance from April 5 to April 15.

During the IDF incursion staff members at the government hospital and al-Razi charitablehospital were trapped in their buildings, unable to return home. Medical equipment andbuildings were damaged by gunfire, at least in some cases coming from the IDF, and thedistribution of medications ceased. Hospitals and the PRCS struggled to operate withoutwater and electricity, and with reduced numbers of staff. Unable to reach medicalfacilities, camp and city residents telephoned the hospitals continuously for advice on howto give first aid, cope with chronic medical conditions, and treat the rising number of healthproblems brought on by the lack of food and clean water.

Lack of Access to Medical Treatment

Jihad Hassan, forty-two, is an elementary school teacher. He lived with his wife, mother, andeight children in al-Mohatta street, near the camp entrance.

On April 4, the second day of the incursion, Hassan walked up to the second floor of his house tofetch formula for his youngest son. As he walked back down the steps, an IDF missile enteredthrough an exterior window and slammed into a neighbouring room. Hassan, startled, fell downthe stairs and broke his leg in four places. The missile exploded: two others hit the houseshortly afterwards, setting the first and third floors alight: Hassans family told himlater it was like the burning fires of hell.

Hassans wife and mother telephoned for an ambulance. Hassan told Human Rights Watch:

I tried to stand up, but I couldnt lift my leg. There was a lot of blood. An ambulance arrived [atthe camp entrance], just fifty meters from my home, but the IDF refused to let it reach thehouse. We talked with the Red Crescent, the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Societies,and with the hospital. Everyone said the same thing: they could not come.

Hassan took two painkillers, and his family tried to treat the wounds with water and salt. Hiswife and mother telephoned for first aid information. Hassan remained in his house withoutfurther treatment from April 4 to April 9. Only a short distance from the camp entrance, hecould see the hospital from his window. On April 5, IDF soldiers entered and searched hishouse, but refused his requests for medical assistance. They ordered his elderly mother toaccompany them from floor to floor as they searched the house, and then left.

On the seventh day of the incursion, April 9, many residents began to leave the camp. Althoughhe did not hear any IDF warning, Hassan also decided to leave.

I saw everyone leaving the camp as a group. I felt something dangerous was going on and thoughtthat this would be a good opportunity to go to the hospital and get treatment. I said to myfamily, it is time. We left about 9:00 a.m. The boys took a mattress and put me on a ladder inorder to carry me to the hospital. People tried to help carry me to hospital, but the IDF stoppedus. I saw lots of young people stripped to their underpants, being arrested by the IDF. Theyordered me to stay with the people they arrested. After an hour I was alone, under the sun, withone other injured person. We stayed there for seven hours.

As evening fell, one soldier called an officer, Captain Adil. The captain authorized anambulance to approach under guard some fifty meters from the camp entrance. A doctor waspermitted to enter the camp after raising his shirt, and Hassan was carried to the ambulance ona stretcher. When the ambulance arrived at the IDF position next to the hospital gate, Hassanwas checkagain by the soldiers. Tanks barred the hospital entrance.

After half an hour I was allowed to enter. That was after they checked my ID, the nature of myinjury, and the fact it was from missiles. I heard the soldiers tell them [the hospital staff]that it was the last patient they would receive that day.

Human Rights Watch documented two cases of civilians who died as a result of their wounds,having been denied access to medical treatment. Fifty-eight-year-old Mariam Wishahi waswounded inside her home by tank fire in the morning of April 6. Her husband tried to obtainmedical assistance for his gravely wounded wife, but the IDF repeatedly refused to allow anambulance to reach the scene, located just a few hundred meters from the main hospital inJenin:

I tried to get an ambulance. I asked my neighbor to get an ambulance. A Palestinian Red Crescentambulance came, but [the soldiers] shot it. When a second ambulance came the next day, thesoldiers made the driver and the nurse take off their clothes next to my house. The driver wastelling them he needed to get someone from the house. I started shouting that we needed anambulance, and the soldiers started shouting to my house, telling me rudely in Arabic to getback inside. My wife kept saying she needed to go to the hospital. On Sunday night, at 11:00p.m., she died. Every time I called the ambulance, they told me that the IDF were shooting atthem and they could not come inside the camp.

Qassim Abd al-Jabr recalled similar difficulties in obtaining medical assistance for hisson Nayif who was seriously wounded in an IDF attack outside the refugee camp: We called anambulance to come but the driver was prevented from reaching the area. The fire truck also cameto try and help but were also preventedthe IDF soldiers prevented them from reaching thearea. Only about twelve hours after his son was wounded was his father able to take him to ahospital. Nineteen-year-old Nayif Abd al-Jabr died from his wounds the next day.

Attacks on Ambulances and Medical Personnel

When permitted to move, ambulances were subject to lengthy coordination and searchprocedures. Ambulance staff spoke to Human Rights Watch of exhaustive search procedures, inwhich staff stripped to their underwear and ambulance contents were examined in detail. IDFsoldiers also checked patients identities and, in some cases, took them from the ambulanceinto Israeli custody.

Such search and arrest procedures, if conducted appropriately and in a way that does notendanger medical access, are legitimate. More troublesome are the repeated incidents inwhich IDF soldiers fired, without warning, on PRCS ambulances and medical staff. HumanRights Watch has previously documented cases in which IDF soldiers in the West Bank have firedon ambulances. The number and frequency of reported IDF shootings at Palestinian ambulancesrose steeply from March 2002, immediately prior to Operation Defensive Shield.

On April 3, the first day of the attack, IDF fire killed a uniformed nurse,twenty-seven-year-old Farwa Jammal, who had come to the assistance of a wounded civilian onthe outskirts of the camp. As the nurse and her sister were trying to reach the wounded man, theycame under IDF fire. The nurse was killed with a gunshot wound to the heart, and her sister wasseverely wounded (see above, Attacks on Civilians).

On April 4, an ambulance crew was dispatched to try and rescue injured people in the Atareharea, near al-Razi hospital. Alaa Salah, himself a PRCS volunteer, lived nearby. At 10:00a.m. he heard an ambulance siren outside. He and his wife went to the balcony door to look.

I heard the ambulance siren. I looked out the window, and saw the ambulance stop. Five secondslater two guys from the ambulance opened the passenger doors and jumped out. I heard the soundof shooting, heavy fire. The ambulance was in the middle of the road with its motor running andthe siren on.

The area was quiet, under curfew and away from the camp. Salah heard no shooting prior to thesound of the ambulance siren. Salah saw the two ambulance staff run behind the ambulance as theshooting continued.

There was still shooting. I think they were shooting around the car. They shot at it maybe twominutes, it sounded like 800mm tank rounds [.50 caliber machine gun fire]. We can distinguishbetween four and five different kinds of ammunition in these operations, weve heard thesounds a lot.

According to PRCS Director Dababna, the PRCS informed the ICRC of the incident, and the ICRCliaised with the relevant Israeli authorities. The IDF denied having fired on the ambulance.Several hours later, PRCS staff were given permission to move the ambulance. The .50 caliberrounds that Salah believed were used during the incident suggest that the IDF was responsiblefor the shooting. IDF use of .50 rounds is routine during military operations, while armedPalestinians rarely have such heavy weaponry in their arsenal. Palestinian use of .50caliber machine guns has been reported in Beit Jala, however.

Haytham Muweis, a thirty-four-year-old ambulance driver, said, Of course there weresoldiers who were just frightened, and fired around the ambulance. But at other times we wereshot at directly. Several ambulance and humanitarian personnel told Human Rights Watchthey believed that the spate of incidents in which IDF soldiers fired on ambulance staffrepresented a policy of deliberate obstruction of ambulance movement.

Muweis told Human Rights Watch of several incidents in which his ambulance had been fired onwhile attempting to reach patients. In one such incident, on April 6 or 7, PRCS crews wereinformed that the IDF had given permission for three PRCS and one ICRC vehicle to enter Jenincamp. The ambulances proceeded past the two IDF positions outside the government hospital,and were subjected to a five-hour search. The PRCS ambulances then attempted to enter thecamp, videoed by the IDF. According to Muweis:

They videotaped us and let us enter ten meters from behind the government hospital into thecamp. We saw many snipers in the surrounding area, and then shots began to be fired around us.When we were shot at, we reversed and told the soldiers we could not go in. Then we were sure thevideo was just for media purposes. I heard that day they said on the news that the IDF had letambulances enter the camp. That is not true. We do not know exactly where the shots fell, and wefelt they were doing it just to scare us away. But it was clear to us that if we went furtherforward, we would be shot.

One week later, circa April 13, Muweis went to collect an urgent case, a woman in the Sanaiyyaarea of Jenin city. He left the ambulance station at 11:30 p.m., navigated through streetssubject to shifting checkpoints, and collected the patient. On his return, two tanks loomedout of the darkness in front of him, some twenty meters away. The tanks immediate opened firearound the ambulance.

The woman had been sleeping, but she woke up and became extremely distressed. I tried to shoutat them that I had an injured woman with me, but no one seemed to be listening. I was yelling frominside the car, but if I had stepped outside I would have been shot. It lasted about fiveminutes. I stayed there until the tanks left, and then I drove off. They did not ask anyquestions or try to search me. Shooting has become a kind of talking for them.

Although the fourteen-day blockage of medical access to Jenin camp was unprecedented in IDFmilitary operations, the difficulties faced by ambulance crews and medical workers duringOperation Defensive Shield were not limited to Jenin. PRCS ambulances were prohibited fromoperating for periods of several days in Ramallah and Bethlehem; more limited, but stillserious limitations on ambulance movement were in effect in other locations. On April 8, thePRCS reported that seven PRCS ambulances had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair sinceMarch 29.

The operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross were also seriously affected.On April 4, the ICissued a press statement noting its regret at the frequent and often seriousinstances in which medical personnel were prevented from performing their life savingduties, explaining that ICRC delegates were regrettably prevented from working becauseof a sudden degradation of the usual lines of communication between themselves and theIsraeli authorities. On April 5, the ICRC reported that it would be limiting its movements inthe West Bank to a strict minimum, stating:

Over the past two days, ICRC staff in Bethlehem have been threatened at gun point, warningshots have been fired at ICRC vehicles in Nablus and Ramallah, two ICRC vehicles were damagedby IDF tanks in Tulkarem and the ICRC premises in Tulkarem were broken into. This behaviour istotally unacceptable, for it jeapordises not only the life-saving work of emergency medicalservices, but also the ICRCs humanitarian mission.

Denial of Humanitarian Access

By the end of the IDF operation in Jenin camp, enormous media controversy had arisen over thequestion of assistance to the wounded and the disposal of the dead. The IDF, rejecting callsfor the participation of independent monitoring or humanitarian groups, announced itsintention to collect and dispose of the bodies of those killed, some via burial in a remotecemetery in the Jordan valley, but this was opposed by local human rights organizations, whobrought a court injunction to prevent the burials from going ahead. While Human Rights Watchfound no evidence to confirm allegations that the IDF had conducted mass burials prior toApril 15, the IDFs six-day prohibition of medical access to the injured and sick in Jenin campis a clear violation of the Israeli obligations under international humanitarian law.

ICRC and PRCS officials were finally permitted to enter Jenin camp after midday on April 15,the day after Israeli authorities and local human rights organizations reached anout-of-court agreement on means of access and the burial of the dead. Accompanied by an IDFliaison jeep, on the first day they transferred seven bodies to the government hospital, aswell as nine wounded and sick. According to the ICRC press officer, ICRC explosive disposalexperts and other delegates have since had satisfactory access to the camp area.

Humanitarian organizations also faced severe problems in gaining access to the camp.Remaining camp residents lacked food, water, medication and basic suppliesnone of whichcould be delivered until April 16. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinerefugees (UNRWA), provides services to the residents of Jenin camp. UNRWA officials wereprohibited from delivering supplies to the camp from April 2 to April 15, despite the fact thatfood, medical supplies and other emergency items were stored in close proximity. Two UNRWAtrucks entered the camp for the first time in the late afternoon of April 15, but could travelonly fifty meters due to the rubble and destruction. UNRWA staff began to unload the trucks,but IDF soldiers forbade them from doing so. As dark fell, UNRWA staff decided to withdrawrather than encourage camp residents to put their lives at risk by trying to get to the food inthe dark and under curfew.

Human Rights Watch interviewed several humanitarian officials on a confidential basisbetween April 15 and 18. All expressed severe frustration at the difficulties surroundinghumanitarian access to the campranging from the lack of battlefield clearance andcontinual unfulfilled promises of access, to the absolute lack of coordination between theIsraeli Civilian Administration and local commanders on the ground. Several recounted toHuman Rights Watch how, after being assured by IDF Central Command or the CivilAdministration that the relevant orders had been given, troops on the ground refused to letthem pass. The Director of UNRWA West Bank operations, Richard Cook, was himself refusedaccess to the camp on April 15, ostensibly because he had not notified the IDF of the number ofhis car license plate in advance. In other cases, requests for equipment, assistance, orpermission to access the area received no reply. UNRWA had orally requested permission toorganize specialized rescue equipment from the Israeli authorities on April 20, andfollowed up the request in written form two days later. By April 29, UNRWA had still notreceived any reply.

Cook commented to Human Rights Watch:

I have a feeling that the Israeli army works in a very fragmented manner. While its sometimesthe case that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, its more probably thecase that the left hand simply does not care what the right hand is doing.

From April 2 to April 15, the IDF had direct control over medical and humanitarian access toJenin camp. During this period Israel was obliged under international humanitarian law toprovide the sick and wounded with access to emergency medical care, and to ensure the supply offood and medical supplies to the civilian population. According to evidence gathered byHuman Rights Watch, injured civilians, combatants, and the sick in Jenin camp had no access toemergency medical care from April 4 to April 15, a period of eleven days. After the campssurrender, civilians continued to suffer as the IDF failed to facilitate access to food,water, and other emergency services, despite its obligations to do so and despite the factthat, for nine days, emergency personnel and supplies were available in close proximity tothe camp.
Disproportionate and Indiscriminate Use of Force Without Military Necessity by the IDF

Destruction of the Civilian Infrastructure

The wide-scale destruction of the Jenin camp has shocked many observers. Much of the physicaldamage was caused by bulldozers sent in to clear paths through Jenin camps narrow, windingalleys. In some cases civilians were not adequately warned of the impending destruction, andin one case a handicapped person died as his house was bulldozed above him and as relativespleaded with the soldiers to stop (see below). Others were caught inside as the destructionbegan. The damage caused by the bulldozers caused permanent damage to many buildings andrendered others uninhabitable or unsafe. Water and sewage mains were disrupted, as well asmuch of the other infrastructure.

Particularly in the initial stages of the incursion, witnesses described how the IDFsarmored bulldozers began destroying their homes while they were still inside, endangeringthe lives of civilians. Bulldozers initially entered the al-Damaj area of the camp on the easthill of the camp. Bulldozers were able to enter the area below Hawashin area on April 6 and 7, andthe Hawashin district on April 9 and 10.

Ahmad Jalamna, aged thirty-seven, lived on the southeast outskirts of the Jenin refugeecamp, where bulldozers first entered the camp at the beginning of the incursion. He recalledhow IDF bulldozers began destroying his home while his family was still inside on the secondday of the attack, April 4, and then shot at his elderly mother when she tried to go outside andstop the bulldozers:

Then they brought the bulldozers. In ten minutes, they had destroyed the shop [in front of thehouse] and some of the rooms [of my house]. I was in the basement and came inside with the others.I told my mother to go out. When the soldiers saw her, they started shooting at her and I pulledher back inside. Then, they threw a sound bomb inside.

Human Rights Watch documented one case in which a civilian was buried alive when IDFbulldozers collapsed his home. Jamal Fayid was a thirty-seven-year-old paralyzed manliving in the Jurrat al-Dahab area of the camp, and his family could not evacuate him in time.Despite the pleas of the family, the IDF bulldozer refused to stop the demolition of the home onApril 6. Jamal Fayid was killed in the collapsed building (see below for more details). It isdifficult to see what military goal could have been furthered or what legitimateconsideration of military necessity could be put forward to justify the crushing to death ofJamal Fayid withogiving his family the opportunity to remove him from his home. The remains ofa number of Palestinian militants have been recovered from collapsed buildings, as well asthose of civilians who were known to have died but whose remains could not be evacuated prior tothe bulldozing. At this writing, recovery efforts continue at the Jenin refugee camp, and itis possible that more remains of civilians or armed Palestinians killed during thebulldozing will be recovered. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any cases of missing peoplewho are believed to be buried under the rubble at the time of this report.

On April 9 in the Hashawin area, Samia Abu Shaab described how his father was shot dead by IDFsoldiers after trying to get bulldozers to stop destroying their home while they were inside:The bulldozers started destroying the outside half of our house. Half of the house was verydestroyed. My father went out to see what had happened. He spoke to the driver of the bulldozerand explained that his family was inside. The bulldozer stopped. Shortly afterwards,Samias father, Muhammad Abu Shaab, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper as he stood inside hishalf-destroyed home (see below). The family was forced to flee the home and had to abandon thecorpse of their father inside. When they returned after the offensive, their home had beenbulldozed and they had to use a bulldozer to recover their fathers remains.

The most significant damage occurred in Hawashin district after the April 9 ambush andkilling of Israeli soldiers by Palestinian militants. Because most residents had fled thearea by the time it was leveled by bulldozers, Human Rights Watch has been unable to establishprecisely when the damage occurred. It is thus difficult to compile an accurate picture ofwhen and how the razing took place. However, it is clear from the wholesale damage, the onlyarea of Jenin camp to be completely leveled, that the destruction was deliberatelycomprehensive.

Based on detailed maps in which individual buildings can be identified, Human Rights Watchcounted a total of 140 completely destroyed buildings in the campmany multi-familydwellingsof which more than one hundred were located in the completely razed area of theHawashin district. While there is no doubt that Palestinian fighters in the Hawashindistrict had set up obstacles and risks to IDF soldiers, the wholesale leveling of the entiredistrict extended well beyond any conceivable purpose of gaining access to fighters, and wasvastly disproportionate to the military objectives pursued.

The destruction in other areas of the camp was indiscriminate in its effect on the civilianpopulation, and disproportionate to the military objective obtained. Aside from the razedHawashin district, over 200 houses sustained major damage, most so serious as to render thehomes within uninhabitable. Those assessments were based only on those houses where damageis externally visible. At the time of Human Rights Watchs research no assessment had beenmade of how many houses had been damaged by the internal mouseholing IDF forces used to getfrom house to house. UNRWA has registered at least 400 families who were rendered homeless bythe IDF military operation in the camp, and estimates that their final count of familiesrendered homeless could reach as high as 800, according to UNRWA Director for the West BankRichard Cook. Based on this estimate, as many as 4,000 residents, representing more than aquarter of the camps residents, could have been rendered homeless.

The wholesale leveling of more than one hundred buildings in Hawashin district, most of themmulti-family dwellings, was clearly an act of extensive destruction. Hawashindistrictthe location of the ambush in which Israeli forces suffered their greatestcasualtieswas the only area of the campaign to be targeted for such complete destruction.Those who argue that the IDFs actions there were justified point to the many explosivedevices found in the district, and speculate that many of the houses may have beenbooby-trapped. The last Palestinian fighters to surrender were holed up in Hawashindistrict. Important in this context is also the fact that Israeli forces at the time were underconsiderable political and diplomatic pressure to conclude the operation quickly. While itmay be the case that the wholesale leveling of the district fulfilled a military objective,speculation concerning the extent of improvised explosive devices in the area and reasons ofexpediency were not sufficient grounds to meet the absolutely necessary standardrequired by international humanitarian law. The extraordinary degree of destruction inthis particular area raises serious questions about the military rationale that could havejustified such actions. This is a case that fully justifies the need for a U.N. fact-findingteam to give its utmost priority to the situation in the Hawashin district.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which promotes adherence to the GenevaConventions, took the unusual step of speaking out publicly about the extent of destructionof the civilian infrastructure in Jenin camp and the inadequate safeguards taken by the IDF toprotect civilian life and property in the camp. Rene Kosirnik, the head of the ICRCdelegation, stated:

When we are confronted with the extent of destruction in an area of civilian concentration, itis difficult to accept that international humanitarian law has been fully respected. If yoususpect your [military] operation will cause disproportionate damage to civilians orcivilian property, then you have to stop the operation.

Human Rights Watch concludes that the Israeli military actions in the Jenin refugee campincluded both indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. Some attacks wereindiscriminate because Israeli forces, particularly the IDF helicopters, did not focustheir firepower only towards legitimate military targets, but rather fired into the camp atrandom. This indiscriminate use of firepower added significantly to the civilian casualtytoll of the fighting and the destruction of civilian homes in the camp. The Israeli offensivein Jenin refugee camp was also disproportionate, because the incidental loss of civilianlife, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects was excessive in relation to theconcrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Inability of Civilians to Flee

Thousands of civilian refugees remained in the camp when the IDF launched its attack. Manybecame trapped inside their homes by the crossfire that raged around them. Camp residentswere also trapped in their houses by IDF gunmen, such as the one who shot at twenty-one year oldSusanna al-Ghada when she moved aside a curtain from her window on April 5, and the one who shotseventy-year-old Yusuf Muhammad as he ran to call in children playing in his neighbors yardon April 6.

Many of the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch described being unable to flee the camp,initially because of the fighting, and later because they had been confined to their houses byIDF soldiers. Fifteen-year old Rhim Salem was kept by IDF soldiers in a house at the edge ofHawashin district until April 15 with twenty-four other people; soldiers also occupied thehouse, which borders the area completely reduced to rubble. Many residents ran from house tohouse inside the camp as the houses they were sheltering in were progressively targeted by IDFfire.

Many civilians were also trapped by the fighting, unable to leave their homes and flee tosafety. Lina Saadiya, in her late forties, lived with her brothers family and mother in ahome near the government hospital. Linas elderly mother, Farida, was paralyzed and oftenconfused. On April 3, the first day of the incursion, the family was eating lunch when ahelicopter-fired missile hit the kitchen, and the second floor began to burn. At first thefamily called for help, but realizing that no one would be able to come to them, they fled to aneighbors house, two doors away.

The next day, April 4, the fighting raged arounthe home where Saadiya and her family werestaying. Armed Palestinians in nearby houses exchanged fire with IDF snipers. IDFhelicopters sprayed the area with gunfire and missiles. The owner of the house and Linasbrothers family fled. For six days, Lina and her mother stayed in the home, unable to run,surrounded by broken glass, dust, and continuous shooting. They had no food. They drank fromthe water tank but it was shot in the fighting and the water eventually drained away.

IDF soldiers discovered Lina and her mother at the house on April 10 and ordered them to leavethat afternoon. A soldier came back and told us to go to the mosque. He said they were going tolay explosives in the area because there was still resistance in the area. Lina asked thesoldiers to help her carry her mother, but they refused, shouting at her to shut up. Lina toldHuman Rights Watch:

My mother was screaming from pain and distress. I tried to carry her, but I couldnt, I was tooweak. I tried to go back to my house, but it had been destroyed by the bulldozer. The camp wasempty and all the people had gone away. I dragged my mother through the road, full of glass andrubble and heavy shooting. I saw someones leg, blown off, on the street. I dragged her for anhour. Her feet were bleeding and she was screaming. I went into a house but it was half gone andthere was a dead body in there.

Lina and her mother eventually found shelter in another house in the same area. They found apacket of dry biscuits and two bottles of water, which sustained them for the four nights theystayed there. Lina and her mother were still in the house when, on April 14, she heard the soundof a bulldozer and the house began to shake. She ran outside, shouted at the driver, and ran inagain to drag her mother out. The second floor of the house caved in as they left. Linaeventually found another house, badly damaged and with a corpse under the rubble. She and hermother stayed there another four days before they were discovered and taken to hospital byforeign journalists on April 18fifteen days after they had first come under fire.

Nidal Abu Khurj explained how he and his family had been forced to move from house to house in therefugee camp as the houses in which they were taking shelter came under attack from IDFhelicopters and tanks. They were first forced to flee their fathers house when a neighboringhouse caught on fire from helicopter shelling, and then spent one night in a brothers housewhere they came under constant IDF fire. They then fled to a second brothers house, where theyagain came under attack from helicopters and were forced to remain in the bathroom withtwenty-four people to avoid the shelling.

On April 7, Khadwa Ahmad Hassan Samara, aged thirty-five, was sheltering with her threechildren and twelve others in the ground floor of her house in the al-Damaj area of the camp.Fighting raged around the area, with armed Palestinians present some thirty meters away. Amissile hit the third floor of the house around noon, destroying an exterior wall and a watertank. At 11:30 p.m. the family was startled by the sound of a bulldozer approaching.

Samara told Human Rights Watch:

The first thing they destroyed was the main door. No one could open it. We were trying to sleep inthe bedroom. That is, kids were asleep but the adults were awake, worrying. When the bulldozercame I had a mobile. I rang my husband and screamed, Help! Call the Red Cross! The Red Crescent!Do anything!

She and the others shouted and placed three lanterns to try and signal that the house wasinhabited. They could not leave the house because the only door had become blocked with rubblefrom the bulldozing. The bulldozer left after demolishing the front stairwell, only toreturn at 5:00 a.m. Samara and her family were fortunate: the bulldozer stopped afterdemolishing the bathroom and the childrens bedroom. She and the others broke a window and ranto a neighbors house. There they had fifteen minutes of rest before the bulldozer approachedagain:

We smashed a hole in the exterior wall, using anything we could findhammers, old bits of pipe,whatever. One by one we climbed out of the hole and went to the house of the brother of Muhammad,my neighbor. We arrived there circa 6:30 a.m.

On April 9, Samara and her family were sheltering in a third house, along with more thantwenty-five other civilians. Samara did not hear any IDF warning to evacuate. It was atelephone call from a relative in Jordan, who was watching the al-Jazeera televisionstation, that convinced Samara and the others to leave. Samara called her husband, trapped athis workplace outside the camp, to check. He confirmed that the IDF had told the inhabitants toleave the camp. Samara and the others made white flags, and left the house at 4:00 p.m. She andher family were stopped by an IDF tank some fifty meters away, and were told repeatedly toreturn to their houses. After waiting for several hours in the street, Samara and her familywere allowed to walk to al-Razi hospital, outside the camp, and arrived safely at 7:00 p.m.

Indiscriminate Helicopter Fire

Although missiles had been used from the beginning of the incursion, their use becameparticularly intense in the early morning hours of April 6. Testimony collected by HumanRights Watch indicates that many areas of the refugee camp were fired upon at that time,catching many sleeping civilians unaware. Many of the rockets used were U.S.-madewire-guided TOW missiles. The evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch suggests that many ofthe TOW missiles indiscriminately hit civilian homes and in at least one case a civilian waskilled when she was struck by a helicopter missile. The number of solely civilian objects hitin the helicopter attacks the early morning of April 6 suggests that insufficient care wastaken by Israeli forces to target only military objects. Due to the dense urban setting of therefugee camp, fighters and civilians were never at great distances. Nevertheless, suchproximity does not provide a valid excuse by Israeli forces action in firing upon the entirearea as if it were a single military target.

Kamal Tawalba, a forty-three-year-old father of fourteen children, offered one of manycompelling accounts that showed how IDF tanks and helicopters made little distinctionbetween legitimate military targets and civilian homes. He told Human Rights Watch that hewas alone with his family at his home on the morning of Saturday, April 6, and had harbored noPalestinian militants in his home: There were no fighters in my house. I have fourteenchildren and would never have taken such a risk. The family was asleep on the bottom floor oftheir home when a tank shell hit the floor above them, setting the house on fire. He and hisfamily tried to leave, but were prevented from doing so when IDF soldiers shot at them: I wentto the gate and started calling to the IDF soldiers to allow us to go out. I tried to ask for helpIheld two children in my armsbut they started shooting at the windows. A few minutes later,two TOW-missiles hit the top floor of his home, causing more destruction: After two minutes,two more missiles came to the house from an Apache helicopter. I can tell the difference [withthe tank shells] because we could see the wires from the Apache helicopter [guiding themissile]. I took my small babythere was so much dustand I went outside without caring aboutthe soldiers. A soldier started shooting at me and told me to put the children down. He took me inthe street and told me to take off my clothes.

Thirty-one-year-old Samira Shalabi was with twelve civilians, including six children, whohad gathered together for safety in Samiras mothers house on Matahin street above the UNRWAschool. She says there were no fighters in the nearby area.

We were sleeping there; there were twelve of us. First, they fired a rocket and some of it felldown into this room. The windows fell in on us and because we couldnt breathe, we left the roomand went into the hallway. But the helicopters didnt s, they kept firing rocketscontinuously. People tried to help us get out, because the rocket blast had sealed the doorshut, we had to go out the kitchen window.

A four-year-old girl, Sara Shalabi, was injured by shrapnel in that attack; while herinjuries were light enough to be initially treated with first-aid, she now needs an operationto remove shrapnel.

Many other buildings fired upon in that attack housed only civilians, for example Yusra AbuKhurj, a mentally disabled woman who lived in the district below Hawashin near the entrance tothe camp. She was killed by a missile from an Apache helicopter fired directly into hertop-floor room in a building at approximately 6:00 a.m.; the building was occupied only bycivilians (see below for more details).

Indiscriminate attacks were most intense on April 6, but they did not entirely abateafterwards. Khadija al-Ruzi, aged fifty-four, described how her family had to flee theirhome in the Hawashin area camp after fire from an Apache helicopter set the house alight. Shesaid that beginning on April 6, the area of the camp they were staying in came under heavyhelicopter fire. There were no Palestinian militants in her three-story building, but thenext day an Apache helicopter strike set the building on fire, forcing its evacuation:

The fourth day [April 7] we had to leave our house because [the IDF] had hit it with a missile andit was burning. It was a three-story building. We were in one corner in the bathroom [because ithad no windows] and stayed there with twenty-eight people, men, women, and children. We wereall civilians. When the house was burning, we had to move.

The family ran to a neighboring house: We left the first house when it was first light [in themorning]. The houses are close to each other so we could move quickly, but the shellingcontinued. They had to leave the second home that same evening at 9:00 p.m. when it, too, cameunder intense tank fire. They went out with white cloths, and the women and children wereallowed to leave the camp by the IDF soldiers in the area, while the men were stripped of theirclothes and arrested.

Some of the helicopter missile fire was so indiscriminate that it nearly killed IDF soldiers.Seventy-two-year-old Raja Tawafshi recalled how an IDF missile fired from a helicopter hitthe top floor of his home in the Saha area of the camp on April 3 as he was accompanying IDFsoldiers who were searching his home: During their inspection, a bomb hit the house from theIDF [helicopter] and damaged that floor.

On Wednesday, April 10, Karima Baklizia, in her sixties, was taking shelter in her house in theHawashin area with another woman and three children. Although this was a time when fightinghad been concentrated in the Hawashin neighborhood, there were no Palestinian fighterspresent in the house. An ambush and the deaths of Israeli soldiers the previous day in theneighborhood had led to particularly intense attacks on that neighborhoodaccording toconfidential sources, the IDF fired at least thirty-five TOW missiles into the campimmediately following the April 9 ambush. Baklizia and the others were hiding in a smallbathroom on the second floor. Three missiles hit the first floor of the house, and the firstfloor began to burn. Baklizia and her companions tried to run to the house next door, only tofind that it, too, had been hit. They ran to a second house, and stayed the night. In the earlymorning of the next day, Baklizia and the others returned.

I returned to my house to check the damage. As I went to check there was another missile strike. Iwas in the bathroom and all the house came down. It collapsed and I felt it shake, but thebathroom is at the beginning of the house and it was still standing. Nobody can believe that I amstill alive.

The women eventually climbed down and walked down to the health clinic. Baklizias companiontook off her headscarf to use as a white flag. Both eventually found shelter with anacquaintance near the health clinic.

Insufficient Warnings Issued by IDF

The IDF took some steps to minimize loss of life by issuing warnings to camp residents, but inmany areas of the camp residents did not receive or hear any warnings. On multiple occasionsfrom April 9, the IDF used loudspeakers to urge civilians to vacate their homes. It is notclear, however, how widely or how often the loudspeaker messages were conveyed. Many of thecamp residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch did not hear the messages directly, butinstead heard about them from neighbors, by seeing their neighbors flee, and, as in Samarascase, by a relative watching al-Jazeera television news in Jordan.

Issa Wishahi, who lived near the entrance to the refugee camp and saw his son and wife killedduring the IDF offensive (see below), recalled hearing the IDF loudspeaker messages:

On Monday [April 8] the soldiers were saying that everyone going out of their homes would besafe, just to carry a white flag, that everyone who remained inside would be bulldozed. Theysaid this in Arabic on the loudspeakers. After that, everyone [in my neighborhood] came outinto the street. The soldiers made that announcement from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Monday.

Fathiya Saadi vividly remembered the Arabic-language warning that came blaring from IDFloudspeakers on Wednesday, April 10, at about 9:30 a.m., ordering civilians to evacuatetheir homes. She repeated the message verbatim to Human Rights Watch:

Inhabitants of the refugee camp of Jenin! We want to inform you that the Israeli soldiers haveoccupied the camp and it is completely under Israeli control now. We have destroyed yourresistance. Now, you must immediately leave your houses, or we will destroy the whole campover your heads by plane and by tanks.

Fathiya and her family left their home, pushing their wheelchair-bound mother in front ofthem. The [Israeli] snipers were shooting in the air to make us afraid, she recounted.

Some of the civilian residents were too fearful to come out of their homes when the IDF orderedthem to leave. Said Abu Anas, a thirty-four-year-old resident of the Hawashimneighborhood, recalled how on the evening of Tuesday, April 9, he heard an announcement on theloudspeakers but was too afraid to go outside: The soldiers started talking on theloudspeakers, saying we must come out and they would treat us with humanity. No one came outbecause we thought we would be killed. Then they asked for the women and children to comeoutthey let the children, women, and old men go out. Said, afraid for his life, stayed insideuntil Saturday, April 13, when IDF soldiers arrested him and the other remaining men.

Many other residents did not hear the warning directly from the IDF soldiers, but wereinformed by their neighbors. Samia Abu al-Sabaa, aged forty-three, recalled: We saw somepeople coming with white kafiyas [head scarves], they said the bulldozers were destroyingthe Hawashin area. They said we should leave our houses, because anyone inside will be killed.The people told us this, not the soldiers. Hala Abu Rumaila, who lived on the outskirts of thecamp and whose stepson and husband died in the IDF attack, also recalled hearing about theevacuation order from neighbors who had heard the IDF message. In some cases, this may havebeen because soldiers did not want to expose themselves to the risk of entering Palestinianhouses. Rim Salem recalled how soldiers occupying the house where she and twenty-four othercivilians were sheltering tried to make her mother go to the neighboring houses in Hawashindistrict. They told her they were going to destroy the house, and wanted my mother to go to theneighbors house to tell them to leave. My mother was afraid to do it because of the soldiers,and the IDF was afraid of the fighters.

Most warnings seem to have preceded imminent destruction by bulldozers. Human Rights Watchdid not receive information that similar warnings were issued in advance of air or artilleryattacks.
Acknowledgements

This report was written and researched by Peter Bo, Human Rights Watch senior researcher foremergencies, and Miranda Sissons, researcher for the Middle East and North Africa divisionof Human Rights Watch. Johanna Bjorken, consultant for Human Rights Watch, assisted in thefield research. The report was edited by Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle Eastand North Africa division of Human Rights Watch; Joe Stork, Washington director of the MiddleEast and North Africa division; Malcolm Smart, program director of Human Rights Watch; andExecutive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth. Wilder Tayler, legal and policydirector of Human Rights Watch, provided legal review. James Darrow, associate for theMiddle East and North Africa division, provided mission support and production assistance.Patrick Minges, Human Rights Watch publications director, and Veronica Matushaj, HumanRights Watch photo editor, provided production assistance.

The researchers wish to thank the many individuals and organizations that gave us invaluableassistance and advice. These include Adalah, al-Haq, Amnesty International, LAW, LinaJarrar, Nafis Ajjawi, Raslan Mahajna, and Dahlia. Many other individuals cannot be named:

we are grateful nonetheless.

Human Rights Watch

Middle East and North Africa division

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.

We stand with victims and activists to bring offenders to justice, to preventdiscrimination, to uphold political freedom and to protect people from inhumane conduct inwartime.

We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable.

We challenge governments and those holding power to end abusive practices and respectinternational human rights law.

We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights forall.

The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Michele Alexander, developmentdirector; Reed Brody, advocacy director, Carroll Bogert, communications director; JohnGreen, operations director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance director; Lotte Leicht, Brusselsoffice director; Michael McClintock, deputy program director; Patrick Minges,publications director; Maria Pignataro Nielsen, human resources director; Jemera Rone,counsel; Malcolm Smart, program director; Wilder Tayler, general counsel; and JoannaWeschler, United Nations representative. Jonathan Fanton is the chair of the board. RobertL. Bernstein is the founding chair.

Its Middle East and North Africa division was established in 1989 to monitor and promote theobservance of internationally recognized human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.Hanny Megally is the

executive director; Joe Stork is the Washington office director; Hania Mufti is the Londonoffice director; Eric Goldstein is the research director; Virginia N. Sherry is associatedirector; Elah Sharifpour-Hicks and Miranda Sissons are researchers. James Darrow andDalia Haj-Omar are associates. Lisa Anderson and Gary Sick are co-chairs of the advisorycommittee and Bruce Rabb is the vice chair.

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