UN General Assembly Expected to Condemn Israel

NEW YORK – The United Nations General Assembly is due hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday in what is expected to be a condemnation of Israel for its role in scuttling the international body's fact-finding probe of what happened in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield.

Incensed that General Secretary Kofi Annan abandoned the fact-finding mission because of Israeli objections on Thursday, Arab states said they would take their fight to an emergency session of the General Assembly.

In a draft resolution, the Arab states are demanding that Annan present a report on Jenin and other Palestinian cities by "drawing upon the available resources and information." The group demanded that it receive the report two weeks after the resolution is adopted.

Annan said on Friday that if asked by the General Assembly, the United Nations could put together a report about the Jenin events. The United States said on Friday that it had questions about humanitarian access to the Jenin refugee camp after the Israeli operation there last month.

"There are indeed unanswered questions that still need to be resolved, like timely access for humanitarian staff and services, search and rescue efforts, treatment of the wounded in the wake of the fighting," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The U.S. supported the UN attempt to send a mission to Jenin to investigate allegations about the conduct of Israeli forces and said it regretted that Israel and the UN were unable to agree on the terms. However, the U.S. expressed its opposition to an Arab-sponsored UN Security Council resolution critical of Israel.

Boucher said the United States was now concerned about the humanitarian situation throughout the West Bank. "The international community needs to continue to address these Palestinian needs. We are in close contact with the organizations involved in humanitarian efforts," he added.

For his part, UN chief, Kofi Annan, said it would have been better for everyone if the fact-finding team had been allowed to clarify the Jenin events. "The long shadow which has been cast over Jenin will be with us for a while," he said.

But he made clear he wanted to put the aborted mission behind him, telling reporters he hoped that, "given the disaster and the tragedy that has happened in that region ... that we will all turn around and focus on the political search for peace."

The European Union deplored the UN decision to call off a fact-finding mission into Jenin and seconded Annan's warning that "the long shadow cast by events there would remain."

"The EU deplores the fact that...the [UN] team is unable to go to the region and begin its mission," Spain's UN ambassador, Inocencio Arias, told the Security Council on behalf of the EU. Spain currently holds the EU presidency.

Israel has nothing to hide

A member of the aborted UN team said in Geneva on Friday that he regretted the mission had been canceled as it could have made "a contribution to a certain detente in the region."

Cornelio Sommaruga, a former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, added, however, that journalists and human rights groups had done a good job of uncovering what had happened in Jenin, and he felt Israel probably had "nothing to hide."

New York-based Human Rights Watch reported on Friday it found no evidence to back charges that hundreds of Palestinians were massacred at the Jenin refugee camp, but said the Israeli army may have committed war crimes there.