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CNN Live Today

Death and Destruction in Jenin Refugee Camp

Aired April 16, 2002 - 13:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, out of Jenin now and the truth has been very difficult to discern, almost as difficult and as heavy as the amount of destruction we are now seeing inside that refugee camp. Reporters have fought for their way in.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rula Amin did walk through that camp. Here is part of what she found on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For the first time after seven days of trying, today we were able to get into Jenin refugee camp without any escort. After we snuck in without -- going around Israeli tanks, what we saw there was devastation. Many houses knocked down. A whole neighborhood that we ran into had been bulldozed. Most of the houses we saw in that neighborhood were either bulldozed flat to the ground or have been badly damaged.

We also saw residents of the camp coming back from nearby areas to check their homes. Some of them were looking for their members of their families, sons, daughters, parents, they had lost touch with and they were looking for them. The people we saw there were telling us that there are still many people buried under the rubble. Nobody had been able to retrieve those bodies (ph).

We, ourselves, when we went into one room in one house where a woman told us that she was going to show us something inside her house, we went in and we saw five bodies there. Obviously they had been dead for a few days. They were -- the bodies were black, you can see flies, and it was very -- the smell was really, really strong. Many of those who were with us had to cover their face as not to smell it. One journalist almost fainted when he had to smell that very smell of death.

Now the Palestinians are charging in this camp there was a massacre. They say that Israeli soldiers had killed more than 500 Palestinians, that most of them civilians, that some of those who were killed had been killed after they surrendered. And they also charge that the Israeli army did not allow the ambulances and the medical team to reach the camp while the battle was going on, which meant that many of those who were wounded had bled to death.

Now the Israeli army saying that it was a fierce battle, no massacre was there whatsoever, but the fighting was very, very difficult. The Israeli army had lost 23 Israeli soldiers in that camp and that most of those who had been killed were Palestinian fighters, gunmen, not civilians. And what they are charging is that some of them have actually been killed by their own booby traps and explosives that they had set for the Israeli soldiers.

It's very hard to verify what had happened inside that camp. We can only report what the eyewitnesses had been telling us and what the army had been telling us, but we can confirm today, after we saw it with our own eyes, there is a lot of devastation in that camp. The United Nations estimates that about 3,000 residents of Jenin refugee camps are now homeless. United Nations agencies and the Red Cross have been able to get inside the camp for the second day in a row. They've been trying to bring in supplies, 40 tons of food. Also, they are trying to help with identifying the bodies and retrieving them, but they say it's a very difficult job. They are still working on it.

Rula Amin, CNN, near Jenin refugee camp.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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