gelatik
15.05.02, 23:58
UNITED NATIONS, May 15 – Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said Tuesday, May 14, that the reparation of the United Nations
report on the events that took place last month in the Palestinian refugee camp
in the West Bank town of Jenin has begun and is expected to take six weeks.
Eckhard said that letters requesting information from the Israeli government
and the Palestinian Authority about the incidents were being drawn up and would
be sent out "in the next day or so," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This report was requested by an overwhelming majority of countries taking part
in an emergency General Assembly session convened last Tuesday to discuss the
situation in the Middle East.
The Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of committing war crimes and
massacring Palestinians during their assault on the Jenin refugee camp from
April 3 through 12, accusations that Israel denies.
"The United Nations," added Eckhard, "expects the preparation of the report to
take six weeks or so."
The spokesman noted that "there will be no progress reports" before the final
report is presented to Annan.
The General Assembly voted 120 in favor, four against, and six abstaining to
commission the report from Annan.
The assembly met at the request of the Arab world after the issue of Jenin
paralyzed the Security Council. Despite hours of closed door discussions and
public debate the council could not come to a consensus on how to respond to
Israel's refusal to receive a fact-finding mission to shed light on the events
in Jenin.
Meanwhile, Israel has come under attack from the human rights organization
Amnesty International, which accuses it of torture and inhuman treatment of
Palestinians during the recent Israeli operation in the West Bank, AFP
reported.
"During the latest Israeli incursions into Palestinian refugee camps and other
residential areas, thousands of Palestinians have been arrested, held in
prolonged incommunicado detention and subjected to cruel and degrading
treatment," Amnesty said in a briefing submitted Tuesday to the U.N. Committee
against Torture (CAT).
The CAT will discuss Wednesday, May 15, the situation in Israel and the
Palestinian territories for the second time in six months.
In November, the U.N. Committee had called on Israel to investigate allegations
of torture by its security forces against Palestinians, and said it was
unconvinced that all such acts had stopped after a 1999 Israeli Supreme Court
ruling.
Amnesty said the CAT held that "administrative detention without charge or
trial, which has recently increased enormously, might constitute cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment."
"AI considers the nature and severity of the suffering inflicted by the
systematic practice of house demolitions without absolute military necessity,
closures and the use of human shields is so grave that they may amount to
torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention against Torture."
Israel launched a massive military offensive on Palestinian territories in the
West Bank in late March.
It has come under international criticism, in particular for destruction in the
Jenin refugee camp, which was virtually leveled in attacks that left at least
50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers dead.
Amnesty also condemned "the rising number" of prison sentences imposed in
Israel on soldiers and reservists for refusing to perform military service in
the occupied territories.
In a statement ahead of the International day of the Conscientious Objector
Wednesday, Amnesty said: "This rise is the result of a growing concern of
conscripts, soldiers and reservists about some of the actions taken by the
Israeli Defense Forces."
The human rights group called on the Israeli government "to release immediately
all those who have been imprisoned because they refused to serve in the Israeli
army for reasons of conscience or profound conviction".
"Conscientious objectors in Israel are imprisoned for weeks and sometimes
months, normally after unfair trials," Amnesty added.
"In many cases they serve multiple prison sentences. Since the beginning of the
intifada at least 114 conscientious objectors have been imprisoned with about
20 of them serving prison sentences at present."
