Jenin

Re "Last-Minute Effort to Salvage Jenin Inquiry Fails," May 2: Why did U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan advocate dropping the investigation into the Jenin refugee camp? The power to perform such inspections will be seriously compromised by doing so. The U.N. must be free to question actions taken by all sides in a conflict--not just those of so-called rogue states. How can the U.N. hope to enforce any future inspections when it willingly backs down on this one? The U.N.-member nations need to remain united for peace with an authority that's globally respected, or we could all just go home and suspiciously eye the rest of the world from behind our fortresses.

When Jenine Shereos was hiking in California a few years ago, the Boston-based artist noticed something that stopped her in her tracks: a decomposing maple leaf with only its lace-like veins remaining. She immediately started collecting these “skeleton leaves.” Around the same time, Shereos was experimenting with human hair as an artistic medium. She already had embroidered long strands from her brunette locks in a root-like pattern for a pillow and stitched them into books, like lines of text.

The ill-fated U.N. investigative mission to the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank will be officially called off today, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, citing what he called fundamental and apparently nonnegotiable Israeli objections to the inquiry. Though Arab nations proposed a draft resolution to the Security Council late Wednesday that would countermand Annan's move and demand Israeli cooperation with an investigation, the United States appeared poised to veto any such initiative, and other council members voiced support for Annan's decision.

Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants Wednesday during a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin, and also entered Nablus for the second time this week. In Jenin, undercover Israeli forces attempted to arrest two members of the militant group Islamic Jihad allegedly involved in planning a foiled suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last week, Israeli officials said. But the troops were shot at and returned fire, killing the pair and a man who was with them, the officials said.

Poor, helpless U.S. Poor, helpless Colin Powell. Poor, helpless George W. Bush. More than a week ago, Bush tells Ariel Sharon to stop the invasion (but doesn't spell out why, at least to the public--about the mass suffering of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians). Now, more than a week later, Sharon says he'll get out of Nablus and Jenin in about a week (but forget Bethlehem and Ramallah). I've been around and informed for the last 30 years that we've been financing Israel's tanks, F-16s, helicopter gunships, etc., with $3 billion a year and, frankly, I'm sick of hearing my "leaders" claim that we have no power to stop this human catastrophe.

The mutilated bodies of two missing teachers were found in a cave in central Israel today, and residents of the victims' hometown went on an anti-Arab rampage. Yosef Eliahu, 35, and Lea Almakais, 19, missing since last Sunday when they left their school in Afula, central Israel, had been dead several days, police said. They said they believed that the two had been killed by Palestinian guerrillas. In Afula, hundreds of people rioted opposite the local police station.

The United Nations commission formed to investigate the nonexistent Israeli "massacre" in the West Bank town of Jenin could have been a means for some desperately needed truth-telling about the Middle East conflict. Instead, given its mandate to focus on Israel's self-defense rather than on the Palestinian terrorism that provoked it, the commission will only confirm that there is no justice to be had in the U.N. for the Jewish state.

Palestinians rioted in the occupied lands today to protest the slayings of the PLO's deputy leader and two other officials in Tunisia. Arab reports said army gunfire killed two demonstrators and wounded at least 60. The army confirmed 13 people were wounded and said it was checking other reports. The worst clashes occurred in the Gaza Strip, once home to Salah Khalaf, the most prominent of the three PLO officials slain Monday night in a Tunis suburb.

First, the good news: Abu Ali's nine children are alive and well--as well as children can be among the ruins of the Jenin refugee camp. Please deliver this news to all of your friends who may have read, a few weeks ago, Abu Ali's mournful declaration: "All my nine children are buried beneath the ruins." Abu Ali's photograph was spread across a double page in a distinguished and influential European magazine under the title: "The survivors tell their story." Israeli tanks and bulldozers had entered the camp, Abu Ali recalled.

Israeli officials confirmed Tuesday that an American Muslim physician from Anaheim has been arrested in Tel Aviv on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activities. David Douek of the Israel Consulate in Los Angeles could provide no details on the arrest Sunday of Riad Abdelkarim, an Anaheim physician who associates said had traveled to the Palestinian territories for medical relief work.

Three Israelis were killed and three others wounded Sunday in a drive-by shooting by Palestinian militants in the West Bank, the Israeli military said. The attack, near a block of Jewish settlements south of Jerusalem, was the deadliest strike against Israelis since their nation's military completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a portion of the West Bank last month. It was followed by a similar shooting Sunday north of Jerusalem.

Israel's Supreme Court reinstated its ruling that "Jenin, Jenin," a film Israeli censors banned over its depiction of a 2002 army assault in a West Bank refugee camp, could be screened in the Jewish state. But the court described the documentary as a "propagandistic lie" that falsely accused Israeli soldiers of intentionally killing children, women, the disabled and the mentally ill. The offensive began after Palestinian suicide bombings.

An Israeli Arab whose film on Israel's assault on the Jenin refugee camp is banned in the Jewish state said Tuesday he had rejected an offer to allow the documentary to air if some sensitive scenes were removed. Mohammad Bakri said he preferred viewers see his "Jenin, Jenin" in its entirety or not at all. The film is temporarily banned pending a ruling on an appeal to Israel's Supreme Court. "They gave me a compromise ... to cut some scenes from the film, and then they will allow the film.

Undercover Israeli army troops shot dead five gunmen in the Palestinian town of Jenin on Wednesday in one of the bloodiest such engagements in the West Bank in months, eyewitnesses and officials said. The deadly shootout came on a day that Israeli and Palestinian officials signaled readiness to set a long-delayed meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian Authority counterpart, Ahmed Korei.

The Israeli military blockade that has encircled and isolated the beleaguered West Bank city of Jenin for the better part of three years was being dismantled Thursday, Israeli officials said. Known as a particularly fervent stronghold of armed Palestinian radicals, Jenin has been cut off from surrounding towns and villages by barricades off and on since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

Israel's Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed a ban on public screenings of an Israeli Arab director's film about one of the most hotly debated military confrontations of the 3-year-old Palestinian uprising. "Jenin, Jenin," described by the filmmaker, Mohammed Bakri, as a fact-based documentary but denounced by Israeli critics as false and propagandistic, examines an intense, close-quarters battle 19 months ago in the heart of a West Bank refugee camp.

The Israeli military blockade that has encircled and isolated the beleaguered West Bank city of Jenin for the better part of three years was being dismantled Thursday, Israeli officials said. Known as a particularly fervent stronghold of armed Palestinian radicals, Jenin has been cut off from surrounding towns and villages by barricades off and on since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

No matter how few bodies have been found, people in Jenin remain convinced that Israeli soldiers committed a massacre here. But there is a growing consensus among human rights groups, international aid workers and even some Palestinians that no massacre took place. Palestinians have maintained since Israel's attack on Jenin and the West Bank town's refugee camp last month that between 300 and 500 Palestinians were killed.

Israeli warplanes attacked the outskirts of a south Lebanese village Wednesday after Hezbollah gunners fired antiaircraft rounds at Israeli jets in Lebanon's airspace, Lebanese and Israeli security sources said. Israeli army spokeswoman Sharon Feingold said the planes destroyed a cannon belonging to Hezbollah. The planes struck the outskirts of Telal al Bayad, just north of the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, Lebanese security sources said.

Israel's Film Ratings Board was barraged with criticism Wednesday after it banned a documentary on an Israeli offensive in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin for portraying its soldiers as war criminals. The board said it decided to ban "Jenin, Jenin," by Israeli Arab actor and director Mohammed Bakri, for a "distorted presentation of events in the guise of democratic truth which could mislead the public." "The public ...