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Israel rebuffs UN over Jenin mission

Army takes over villages near Bethlehem, Jenin

AFP, Jerusalem
Israel on Tuesday again rebuffed a UN fact-finding mission into the devastation at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, saying the world body had not yet met all its conditions.
As the deadlock between Israel and the United Nations continued, plans progressed to end the siege of Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat following an agreement brokered by Washington over the weekend.
On the ground, the Israelis rolled into two more West Bank villages in their sweep for Palestinian militants, while a Vatican envoy reportedly prepared to enter talks on the Israeli siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his security ministers again vetoed the arrival of a UN mission to look into Palestinian charges of a civilian massacre at Jenin which the Israelis
deny.
"Israel has presented crucial conditions so that the mission can honestly seek the facts, but as long as these conditions are not met it is not possible for the mission to start its work," an official statement said.
Israeli state radio said all but one of the 14 members of the security cabinet supported the decision, the fourth time the Israelis had spurned the mission.
The United Nations on Monday postponed for the third day running its team's departure for Israel. The group of some 20 fact-finders and advisers waited in Geneva for the green light after a week of diplomatic wrangling.
Israeli Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin earlier told army radio here Tuesday that the Jewish state would never allow the mission to visit the camp in the northernmost West Bank unless its mandate was redefined.
"Israel will not cooperate with this mission if UN Secretary General Kofi Annan maintains his position on the terms and continues to seek the right for this mission to summon whomever it wants as witnesses."
Rivlin, who is close to Sharon but does not sit on the "security cabinet," added that "Israel will not allow itself to be placed in a dangerous situation where the committee's conclusions will be decided in advance."
Israeli officials say they have Washington's backing for their position on Jenin after agreeing to a US proposal to free Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from a monthlong siege of his West Bank base.
Washington made no comment on the Israeli claim but called Monday for "an expeditious agreement" on the fact-finding mission and said it should "move forward as soon as possible."
Controversy has swirled around
what happened during nine days of ferocious fighting after Israeli troops, tanks and helicopters swooped down on Jenin on the northernmost West Bank on April 3.
The Palestinians say Israeli forces massacred hundreds of civilians while the Israelis insist they killed 52 people, mostly fighters, in pitched battles that left 23 of their soldiers dead.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International that have visited Jenin found no signs of a massacre but said Israeli forces might have committed war crimes such as bulldozing civilian homes or failing to treat the wounded.
US and British officials moved ahead with plans to put six militants holed up in Arafat's Ramallah headquarters in international custody to clear the way for a lifting of the Israelis' month-long siege.
A US official said discussions on the plan were continuing while
British security experts were to visit a jail in the West Bank town of Jericho where the militants would be transferred, Palestinian sources said.
Under the plan proposed by US President George W. Bush, Arafat would be free after the six Palestinians were in US or British custody. The White House said Monday the prisoners should be in Jericho "within a day or two."
The deal to end Arafat's isolation was hailed as a potential breakthrough in efforts to restart talks on ending the 19-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has claimed more than 2,000 lives.
Meanwhile, Israel tanks and troops on Tuesday took over the village of Shawawra, just to the east of Bethlehem, and arrested dozens of Palestinians, witnesses told AFP.