U.N. Death Reopens Israeli Allegations

> By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer

November 26, 2002, 2:00 AM EST

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank -- The gate to the U.N. girls school here is plastered with posters hailing suicide bombers, and the U.N. compound down the street has graffiti on its outer wall signed by the militant group Hamas warning that "When they kill a martyr, we will kill 100 Jews."

Such wall art would be unthinkable on a U.N. building anywhere else in the world. But the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees is not like any other, having provided education and health care to Palestinians for over 50 years -- often the only services available in refugee camps that sprung up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and remain today.

But that intertwined U.N.-Palestinian relationship has fueled Israeli allegations of indirect U.N. complicity in Palestinian terror -- charges that were aired again with the killing of a U.N. official by Israeli soldiers during a firefight in the Jenin refugee camp last week.

The Israeli army said its soldiers fired on the walled U.N. compound inside the camp, killing British senior manager Iain Hook, because Palestinian gunmen were firing at them from inside -- a charge the United Nations vigorously denied.

Paul McCann, a U.N. spokesman, said such allegations were "incredible" -- particularly since the compound is sealed by an eight-foot cement block wall topped with another six feet of fencing, and closed to anyone without U.N. permission.

"No, no, no, it was impossible for any Palestinian gunman to get in there," said Tawfiq Mohammad Farhad Farhad, 75, whose three-story home is directly across the street from the U.N. compound, explaining that Israeli tanks had sealed off the area and troops had poured into the streets Friday when the firefight broke out.

He said Israeli soldiers used his second- and third-floor landings to fire onto the U.N. compound and street as they hunted for a wanted militant.

Nevertheless, Israeli officials say Friday's firefight was just another instance in which Palestinian militants had used UNRWA, or the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, as a cover to attack Israelis.

The allegation hits a particular nerve considering the long history of strained relations between Israel and the United Nations: while U.N. resolutions paved the way for the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, relations have been soured for much of the time since.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said he didn't blame UNRWA for direct collaboration with Palestinian militants, but said UNRWA could do more to "raise its voice" to oppose armed groups from operating in the camps.

"What you find today in Jenin is a litany of the history of the use, misuse and abuse of camps by armed groups," he said. Israel has called Jenin the hotbed of Palestinian militant activity, and staged a massive offensive in the city in April, laying waste to dozens of buildings and homes in the refugee camp.

UNRWA was created in 1949 to provide relief until a political settlement was found. Since none has yet been reached, the agency today offers education, health care and other services to 3.9 million people -- the original refugees and their descendants -- in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank and Gaza alone, UNRWA operates about 260 schools and about 50 primary health care facilities -- serving more than 1.5 million registered refugees and employing about 10,000 Palestinians.

UNRWA has vigorously denied accusations it turns a blind eye to terror and says it's not in its mandate to go after militants, saying security in refugee camps has always been the responsibility of either Israel or the Palestinian Authority.

"The camps are not UNRWA camps ... it's not like we administer the camps," McCann said. "We have a humanitarian responsibility for people who live in the camps."

Similarly, the teachers, doctors and nurses who work for UNRWA can't be expected to act as informants -- they are Palestinians, just like their neighbors, and that's not their job, he said.

"They live in these communities. To ask them to inform on people ... what can be expected?" he said.

That argument hasn't swayed some Jewish groups or U.S. congressmen, who earlier this year launched a campaign to reform UNRWA and change its mandate, claiming its schools tolerated a climate of terrorism that no U.N. agency should allow.

"UNRWA has been transformed into a shield for terrorism," said Avi Beker, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. "UNRWA has been used, but at the same time, under the watchful eyes of UNRWA officials, these things are happening."

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said earlier this year that if terrorism was thriving under UNRWA's eye, the United States should withhold funding -- which amounts to about one-third of the agency's annual budget of about $310 million.

McCann says such allegations are based on opinion, not fact. He acknowledges, however, that the United Nations can do little about the graffiti and posters that cover the outer walls of its schools and compounds.

"We make a strong and ongoing effort to weed out contentious material" inside the schools, he said. "Outside the schools ... as soon as we painted it, there'd be graffiti back on it."

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2002

Answers

hmmm, if we're helping to fund the UNRWA, does that mean we are supporting the very terrorists we are hunting?

This is NOT a good thing.

I have to side with the Israelis on this one. they should know better than the UN what's going on there. The UN says no - no terorists were shooting form inside; that they couldn't get in. Then they turn around and say the security is up to the Palestinians. what are they thinking?

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2002