A human rights watchdog said on Friday it had 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. Human Rights Watch said in a report it had identified 52 Palestinians who were killed during eight days of fierce house-to-house fighting in the West Bank camp last month, of whom 22 were civilians.
"Many of the civilians were killed willfully or unlawfully," it said. "Human Rights Watch also found that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) used Palestinian civilians as human shields and used indiscriminate and excessive force during the operation."
"Human Rights Watch did not find evidence to support claims that the IDF massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the camp."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on Wednesday he was disbanding a team set up to probe the clash at Jenin because of objections from Israel, which maintained the mission was prejudiced against it.
Palestinians have accused the Israeli army of a massacre and the Israeli press has quoted Army officers and soldiers admitting atrocities against Palestinians.
OCCUPATION ARMY REFUSED TO PROVIDE INFORMATION: .
Human Rights Watch's 48-page report was based on the findings of three investigators it sent to Jenin for a week.
The team gathered, corroborated and cross-checked accounts from victims and witnesses, but the Israeli army refused to provide it with information.
The group said U.S.-supplied helicopters had fired anti-tank missiles and other ordnance into the camp, "in some cases making insufficient efforts to identify legitimate military targets and avoid hitting civilian houses."
"The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes," it said.
"Criminal investigations are needed to ascertain individual responsibility for the most serious violations. Such investigations are first and foremost the duty of the Israeli government, but the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs."
Human Rights Watch, which has reported on conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia, Chechnya and further afield, said it was preparing a separate report on those responsible for the Resistance bombings directed against Israeli civilians.
PHOTO CAPTION
Human Rights Watch said on May 2, 2002 it had 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 involving the possible killing of civilians. Palestinians are shown in the destroyed camp April 25. (Reinhard Krause/Reuter