Palestine-Israel Conflict

Families scrabble in the dust to find their dead

by Justin Huggler in Jenin
19 April 2002
Source: PalestineMonitor.org

When they found the body it was in pieces and so they gathered it all up out of the rubble, great chunks of blackened, rotting flesh with bits of bone sticking out, and piled them up on a blanket. The smell made us retch and stumble away, gasping for clean air. The Palestinians said the putrefying flesh and bone was Mohammed Massoud Abu Sb'a.

The people of Jenin refugee camp returned to look for their dead yesterday amid the devastation that the Israeli army had made of their homes. The destruction was more complete than an earthquake, yet the Israelis have not allowed in any heavy lifting equipment, so the Palestinians dug out the bodies with their hands, scrabbling in the dust and heaving away the broken blocks.

Aid workers and human rights monitors have started to call this ground zero. The television pictures do not convey the devastation. You have to come here to walk over the dust and rubble that used to be people's homes, picking your way through the little pieces of their lives, the children's schoolbooks and discarded clothing. You have to smell the stench of death that clings to certain corners. The piles of rubble tower high above your head and the work of removing the bodies is nerve-racking and haunting.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, visited the most heavily damaged area and described the scene as "horrific beyond belief". Israel's actions were unjustifiable, no matter what the military objective, he said, demanding that Israel allow unrestricted access to humanitarian agencies. "Jenin will for ever be a blot on the history of the state of Israel," he told Israel Army Radio.

The army is supposed to be removing the bodies, accompanied by the Red Cross, but when the curfew was lifted for a few hours the Palestinians returned in their droves to look for their own dead.

Despite the pullback of Israeli troops reported by witnesses, Jenin was still closed to journalists. We had to sneak in across fields, trying to avoid being seen by Israeli soldiers.

The Palestinians crawled into the wreckage, ducking under the perilously hanging piles of broken concrete. Someone was distributing masks to those digging to ward off the stench and the disease.

Moving around is still dangerous for Palestinians. Two men were brought into the hospital after being shot at. Ali Abu Salim, 65, had gone to a nearby village to see his grandchildren. As he tried to come home yesterday Israeli soldiers fired on the car, injuring Mr Abu Salim in the arm and the driver, Yasin Khalil, in the buttock. Mr Abu Salim told us his son Mohammed was killed during the Israeli onslaught on Jenin refugee camp.

One woman said she was seeking her two sons. It is possible they are among hundreds of young Palestinian men the Israeli army has detained. Or they could be in the rubble.

Another woman stopped us outside the hospital. Something had happened to her sister, but she would not explain what. "See what Sharon has done to us,'' she said hysterically. "America is with Sharon, Britain is with Sharon.''

Slowly the bodies are emerging. So far only 36 have been identified, said the director of the hospital, Dr Mohammed Abu Ghali. Four are women, one is a 13-year-old child. And the rumour persists that bodies have been removed. Israeli military sources have said it was the army's original intention to take the bodies away and bury them in a "special cemetery'' in the Jordan Valley. But now they say that the plan was dropped.

A large white lorry was hanging around Jenin yesterday. The Palestinians said it was a refrigerator lorry. Dr Abu Ghali said the Israel soldiers handed over five bodies, out of the back of the lorry, to the hospital authorities for burial. Hospital staff were burying the bodies they had identified in a makeshift cemetery behind the hospital. The grave was marked out with white stones. It was only a temporary resting place, he said. For now, amid all the destruction, there was nowhere else to put them.