Battle of Jenin (2002)

Battle of Jenin
Part of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Operation Defensive Shield
IDF D9L and D9N armored bulldozers, instrumental in changing the style of combat and the outcome of the battle.
Date April 2002 Location Jenin, West Bank
Belligerents
Israel IDF	File:Fateh-logo.jpg Fatah (Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Tanzim) Hamas File:Flag of PIJ.gif Islamic Jihad
Commanders and leaders
Yedidia Yehuda [4]	Mahmoud Tawallbe†
Strength
1,000	200-250
Casualties and losses
23 soldiers killed	52 killed (38 armed men, 14 civilians according to IDF; 30 militants, 22 civilians according to HRW) 685 persons arrested (mostly released)

The Battle of Jenin, previously dubbed the Jenin Massacre, took place in April 2002 in Jenin's Palestinian refugee camp as part of Operation Defensive Shield.

A series of suicide attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli civilians, which culminated in the March 27, 2002 Passover massacre in which 30 Israelis were killed, followed by six other suicide bombings in a span of two weeks, prompted the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to conduct what it considered a large-scale counter-terrorist offensive.

Israel targeted Jenin's refugee camp, referred to as "the martyrs' capital" by Palestinians after it charged that the city had "served as a launch site for numerous terrorist attacks against both Israeli civilians and Israeli towns and villages in the area", including the dispatch of 28 suicide bombers.

Palestinian sources had alleged that the camp and its dwellings were attacked indiscriminately by Israel with heavy military equipment, combat helicopters, rockets and missiles, Report of the Secretary-General on Jenin, paragraphs 32, 33, 50</ref> and raised allegations of a massacre, which were reported in the international media; the allegations were subsequently refuted, and the Palestinian death toll was estimated at 52, while 23 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Background

From the beginning of March until the first week in May 2002, there were approximately 16 bombings in Israel, mostly suicide attacks. More than 100 civilians were killed and scores wounded. 18 Israelis were killed in two separate Palestinian attacks on March 8 and March 9, and a terrorist attack in Netanya killed 30 and injured 140 on March 27. Within 24 hours Israel called up 30,000 reserve soldiers and launched Operation Defensive Shield in Ramallah and Bethlehem, entering Tulkarm and Qalqilyah a day later.

The second largest UNRWA refugee camp in the West Bank, the Jenin camp existed since 1953 and housed 13,055 in an area of 548 metres squared, forming a neighbourhood of densely packed buildings alongside Jenin-proper and not far from the Green Line. It had come under Palestinian civil and security control with the rest of the city as part of the Oslo Accords in 1995, which dictated a prevention of attacks on Israelis. According to Israeli and Palestinian observers who gave information to the UN, 200 armed men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Tanzim, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas had been using the camp as a base, known as "the martyrs' capital", and of the 100 suicide bombers who had launched attacks since the Second Intifada began in October 2000, 23 or 28 attacks had been launched from there. On of the key planners of attacks was Mahmoud Tawallbe, Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander of the camp.

Limited Israeli forces had entered the camp along a single route twice in the previous month; they had encountered heavy resistance and quickly departed. The command decided to this time send in three thrusts comprised mainly of the reservist 5th Infantry Brigade/Nachshon from the town of Jenin to the north, as well as a company of the Nahal Brigade from the southeast and Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade from the southwest. The force of 1,000 troops also included elements of the Naval commando and Duvdevan Unit special forces, the Armoured Corps, and Combat Engineers with armored bulldozer for neutralising the roadside bombs that would line the alleys of the camp according to Military Intelligence. Anticipating the heaviest resistance in Nablus, IDF commanders sent two regular infantry brigades there, assuming they could take over the Jenin camp in 48-72 hours with just the one reservist brigade, an assessment which turned out to be overly optimistic. The force's entry was delayed until April 2 due to rain.

Since the previous Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian militants had prepared by boobytrapping both the town and camp's streets in a bid to trap the Israeli soldiers, some of them as large as 113 kilograms, ten times larger than a typical suicide bomber's charge. They had also cut tunnels between homes to maintain mobility without exposing themselves to the street.

The battle

Israeli forces entered on 2 April, and had secured the town of Jenin by the second day. Israeli intelligence estimated that 90% of noncombatants had left before they had arrived, leaving around 1,300 people.

Palestinian militants had expected an air strike since their security forces' barracks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank had been repeatedly bombed by an Israeli military that didn't want to risk the casualties of Close Quarters Combat. However in Jenin, the IDF chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft in order to minimize civilian losses, even with the risk of increased losses to infantry, although there appears to have been a limited use of helicopters.[5][6].

A leader of Fatah gunmen in the camp told Time that it was only when his forces saw the Israelis advancing on foot that they decided to stay and fight. Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant Tabaat (or Thabet) Mardawi enthusiastically told CNN from his prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, "It was like hunting ... like being given a prize... The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed... I've been waiting for a moment like that for years." Mardawi told CNN that Palestinian fighters had spread "between 1000 and 2000 bombs and booby traps" throughout the camp.

An IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer driving along a 1.2 km stretch of the main street to clear booby traps set off 124 separate explosions.

By the third day, despite previous Israeli assessments, the Palestinians were still dug in, and seven Israeli soldiers had been killed. As the IDF advanced, the Palestinians fell back to the heavily defended camp centre - the Hawashin district. The Israelis began to call in AH-1 Cobra helicopters to hit rooftop positions along with Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers to detonate the booby traps and clear a path for tanks.

On the seventh day, 9 April, 13 Israeli soldiers were killed when Palestinian fighters used civilians to lure an Israeli patrol into a booby-trapped ambush, and then opened fire on those retrieving wounded. When another soldier was killed on the camp's edge, it became the deadliest day for the IDF since the end of the 1982 Lebanon War.

Change in Israeli tactics

File:D9R-idf.jpg

A Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer used by the IDF during the battle.

After the April 9 ambush, the IDF changed tactics, presumably in order to continue the operation without risking more Israeli deaths, and increased to a dozen the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers in operation. The IDF maintained that the heavy bulldozers were mainly used to clear walls and streets of booby traps, open routes and widen alleyways for armored fighting vehicles, and to secure locations and movement for IDF troops. Time reported that while houses were knocked down by the bulldozers, they could not have buried the amount of people alleged by Palestinians since it takes a half-hour to fully wreck a building, and because Israeli soldiers say they always called any residents to leave in advance. Even if civilians were too frightened to leave initially, they surely would once the D9 started working. A senior Palestinian military officer told Time that the gunmen's own booby traps probably buried some civilians and fighters alive, some of the larger charges capable of more devastation than a D9.

A day later, Mahmoud Tawallbe and two other militants went into a house so as to get close enough to a tank or armoured D-9 bulldozer to plant a bomb. According to a British military expert working in the camp for Amnesty International, a D9 driver probably saw him and rammed a wall down onto him. Tawallbe's name subsequently became familiar in the Arab world.

The D9s led Israeli forces deeper into the camp until on the ninth day, a D9 sliced the wall off a house in the heavily defended Hawashin district, and 39 dazed gunmen surrendered with their hands in the air. Among the militants were Palestinian Islamic Jihad members Tabaat Mardawi and Ali Suleiman al-Saadi, known as Safouri, Israeli targets responsible for a number of attacks and whose incarceration meant the combat would soon end.

According to Time, "It was real urban warfare, as a modern, well-equipped army met an armed and prepared group of guerrilla fighters intimately familiar with the local terrain. For both sides, Jenin has been added to the memories that invest the conflict in the Middle East with such bitterness." A total of 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the street fighting.

Aftermath

The introduction of the heavily armored bulldozers, which shrugged off explosives and RPGs alike, [7] and the threat of being buried alive, caused the Palestinian militants to surrender. Later, IDF forces withdrew gradually from the refugee camp under international pressure.

After the conflict Israeli reports claim that 8-9% of the houses within the refugee camp were destroyed. This was largely within an area of intense fighting of approximately 100 m by 100 m according to the IDF. [8]. An area within the refugee camp, 100 m by 200 m according to some (up to 400 m by 500 m by other estimates)[9] was reported to have been flattened. [10] Reports added that six (globalsecurity.org) or ten (BBC) percent of the camp were destroyed in the fighting.

Most of the demolition occurred in the Hawashin neighborhood, where most of the militants and explosives remained. Israel states that it demolished those houses because they were densely rigged with explosives.

In October 2002, according to the Walla news agency, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas websites reported that their forces in Jenin before the Israeli entry included 250 armed militants. The official Kol Yisrael radio station reported that 15,000 explosive charges were at the militants' disposal, as well as a large number of handguns. The militants were well organized and had an extensive system of communications.

Al-Ahram Online interviewed with "Omar the Engineer", a Palestinian bombmaker who claimed that some 50 homes were booby trapped. "We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them," he said.

According to Israeli authorities, numerous buildings, passages and even bodies were booby-trapped, often prompting Israelis to use armored bulldozers to level numerous buildings. The Israelis also claimed to have found more than a dozen explosive-making labs, as well as the bodies of foreign citizens, most of whom were operatives of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who had been brought over from Jordan.

Allegations of a massacre

According to the Anti-Defamation League, "International organizations, non-governmental organizations, and many foreign governments prematurely and summarily attacked Israel for committing atrocities during its military operations in the West Bank. But while a massacre of hundreds was alleged, reported and condemned, it is now essentially certain that no such massacre occurred."[11]

Later inquiries by human rights groups, the UN commission and The Palestinian Fatah (PLO Leadership) did not find evidence of massacres by Israeli forces in Jenin.

Body count estimates

Initial fatalities estimates put forward by both Palestinian and Israeli officials were high, measuring in the hundreds. In examples cited in the timeline below, figures include both civilians and armed combatants unless otherwise indicated:

• April 3

• Fighting begins

• April 6

• The Arab League hears in a speech where Nabil Shaath compares "Israeli actions in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus to the 1982 massacres of hundreds of Palestinans",[12] probably referring to the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

• April 7

• Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian minister for Local Government is quoted in the Washington Post making the first allegation of a massacre.[13]
• NBC News hears from Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority Abdel Rahman that "over 250 Palestinians killed".[14]

• April 10

• Israel estimates 150 dead[15]
• Saeb Erekat estimates 500 or more dead in the whole Israeli offensive[16]

• April 12

• Fighting ends
• IDF spokesman Brigadier-General Ron Kitrey reports on Israeli Army Radio that there are apparently hundreds killed, the IDF quickly clarify he meant hundreds of casualties (killed or injured).[17]
• An IDF source reportedly puts the number of dead at 250[18]
• Palestinian Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accuses Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp, whilst Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Abdel Rahman claimed that "thousands" had died, the most serious accusations of the episode

• April 14

• After the IDF reportedly estimate 250[19] and 188,[20] a final figure of 45 is given.[21]

• April 30

• Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank set the total dead at 56.

• August 4

On 4 August, the bodies of one young boy and two adult males were discovered when an outer edge of the piles of rubble were sifted through. Four days later, another body was found compacted into the floor of his home.[22]

According to the United Nations (which was prevented from making a visit), "at least 52" Palestinian deaths were confirmed. Human Rights Watch "confirmed that at least fifty-two Palestinians were killed ... This figure may rise". The IDF estimate the number at 52. The designation of combatants differs (IDF counts 38 "armed men", HRW counts 30 "militants"). Palestinian Fatah investigators claimed the death toll is 56, announced by Kadoura Moussa, the Fatah director for the Northern West Bank. 23 Israeli soldiers were also killed.

The battle attracted widespread international attention due to Palestinian claims that war crimes were committed (these claims were repeated in the HRW report), and as a result of inflated reports on body counts by all parties. The IDF barred journalists from entering the camp during the fighting on safety grounds and at one point reported casualties as high as 250, yet many journalists gave some credence to Palestinian claims that a massacre of Palestinian civilians may have taken place during the fighting, and claims that hundreds, or even thousands, of bodies had been secretly buried in mass graves by the IDF were spread. These allegations were aired widely in the Arab world, inciting extreme antipathy toward Israel. Due to this activity, critics in the West name the events as the "Big Jenin Lie".

Many Arabs and Palestinians still use the term "Jenin Massacre" (ar:مجزرة جنين) regardless of the results of the investigations.

Post-fighting investigations

Massacres refer not only to the numbers killed, but also to the method used.

In an article about the battle in Jenin, Time Magazine ruled out Palestinian allegations of massacre, writing that:

A Time investigation concludes that there was no wanton massacre in Jenin, no deliberate slaughter of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. But the 12 days of fighting took a severe toll on the camp. [23]

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Jenin during the month of the battle, and upon returning to the States testified to a congressional panel that there was no evidence of mass graves or a massacre. Several months later, the UN concluded an investigation into the events and found claims of a "massacre" to be baseless. Human Rights Watch found no evidence for a massacre, but said "Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes." The human rights organization also criticized Palestinian militants for having endangered the lives of Palestinian civilians in part by "intermingling" with them. An investigation by Time "concludes that there was no wanton massacre in Jenin, no deliberate slaughter of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers."

International statements and human rights reports

In late April and on May 3, 2002, the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch released reports about the Israeli military incursions into Jenin. The reports documented that approximately 30 Palestinian militants, 22 Palestinian civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and thus felt no evidence that a massacre took place. However, HRW did say that Israel "committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes," while Amnesty International similarly alleged evidence that Israel had committed war crimes.

The Anti-Defamation League questioned how HRW and AI could both acknowledge the lack of a supposed Israeli massacre and the endangerment of Palestinian civilians by Palestinian gunmen and still maintain its accusation of Israel, and labelled the reports prejudiced.

UN report

Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. IDF also places the death toll at approximately 52. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged. Article (56).

UN Report was strongly criticized by Human Rights Watch as "flawed" for not having any first-hand evidence and failing to address serious questions[24].

Human Rights Watch report

See also: Criticism of Human Rights Watch § Battle of Jenin

The Human Rights Watch report found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF". The report agreed with the total casualty figures provided by the IDF but documented a higher proportion of civilian casualties. Amnesty International concurred. The HRW report documented instances of unlawful or willful killing by the IDF, some of which could have been avoided if proper procedures were followed, as well as instances of summary executions. It also documented use of Palestinians as 'human shields', by the IDF, and prevention of humanitarian organizations from accessing the camp despite the great need. The report concluded:

Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes. Human Rights Watch found no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in Jenin refugee camp. Ultimately, Human Rights Watch verified the deaths of 52 Palestinians, of whom it concluded that 27 were suspected to be armed combatants, 22 were civilians, and the status of the remaining 3 could not be determined.[25]

While focusing mainly on the actions of the IDF, the report also stated that:

Palestinian gunmen did endanger Palestinian civilians in the camp by using it as a base for planning and launching attacks, using indiscriminate tactics such as planting improvised explosive devices within the camp, and intermingling with the civilian population during armed conflict, and, in some cases, to avoid apprehension by Israeli forces.

The report notes that:

The presence of armed Palestinian militants inside Jenin refugee camp, and the preparations made by those armed Palestinian militants in anticipation of the IDF incursion, does not detract from the IDF's obligation under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians ... Unfortunately, these obligations were not met.

Amnesty International report

Unlawful killings violate the "right to life" laid down in Article 6 of the ICCPR. Amnesty International considers that some of these abuses of the right to life would amount to "willful killings" and "willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health" within the meaning of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention dealing with grave breaches of the Convention; "grave breaches" of the Geneva Convention are war crimes. -[26].

Notes on the independent reports

Israeli critics pointed out that the inquiries included no urban or counter-terrorist warfare specialists and therefore they believe that the investigators were unable to assess the justifiability of the IDF actions. Israel claimed that humanitarian organizations were rash to jump to conclusions about Israeli conduct without investigating thoroughly the conduct of the Palestinian guerrilla forces in the area.

Moreover, Israel complained that although terrorists are civilians by definition, they are still combatants, which made their status different from that of the unarmed civilians. Finally, Israeli critics pointed out the human rights groups had not investigated the incidents in which ambulances of the Palestinian Red Crescent and equipment of other aid agencies were allegedly being used by Palestinian militants to transport weapons and combatants, thus voiding their nonbelligerent status as defined in the Geneva Convention.

UN fact finding mission

To settle the contradictory claims, a fact finding mission was proposed by the United Nations on April 19, 2002. The Government of Israel considered the intitiative to set up the mission as "an anti-Israeli diplomatic offensive".

While formally agreeing to co-operate with the inquiry, the government of Israel set a whole list of preconditions:

• That the mission should include anti-terrorism experts (this was supported by one Amnesty International advisor[27])
• That the UN agree not to prosecute Israeli soldiers for any violations of international law which might be uncovered during by the mission

and

• That the mission limit its scope exclusively to events in Jenin.

These conditions were justified by the Israeli government's legal experts on the grounds that "the conditions under which the UN proposed the mission were unfair, as the UN did not agree to give the anti-terrorism expert full membership, would not give the mission a strict mandate, nor declare the mission solely investigatory (as opposed to having a judicial purpose)". According to the Israeli legal experts, all three positions violate of the UN's own principles (as stated in the "Declaration on Fact-finding by the United Nations", A/RES/46/59 of December 9, 1991).

The UN refused to accept the last two conditions, whereupon the Israeli authorities announced that they would not allow the mission entry into any Israeli-controlled territory, nor cooperate with its activities in any way. According to commentaries by the diplomatic correspondents of the main Israeli papers (Yediot Aharonot, Maariv and Haaretz), the Sharon Government took this stance after being assured of tacit support from the Bush Administration in the US.

The members of mission were for several days effectively stranded in Switzerland. As described in several commentaries on the Israeli and interantional press at the time, the The United Nations had several choices:

• Accepting the Israeli conditions - Palestinian and other Arab diplomats at the UN headquarters made clear they would condemn such a move;
• Proceeding with the investigation without Israeli coopertaion and without physical access to Jenin - which would have meant relying mainly on Palestinian eye-witnesses that are able to exit the West Bank, and would have inevitably produced a manifestly one-sided report;
• Continuing pressure on the Israeli Government to change its stance, a small possibility to make a difference, in light of US support for Israel's position on the mission's team.

After several days, UN Secertary General Kofi Anan announced that due to the situation, he's disbanding the mission.

On May 7 2002 the UN General Assembly condemned both the Israeli operations and Israel's refusal of to cooperate with fact-finding team.[28]

Floor Statement: The Jenin Investigation

In a statement to the President of the United States, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) addressed Jenin and the UN fact finding panel:

Had the Israelis chosen, they could have easily sat back and pummeled the camp from afar and starved the terrorists out. Instead, they...went house to house -- doing so, in part, to avoid civilian casualties, not to inflict them.
... [T]here is a world of difference between the deliberate targeting of civilians and the unintentional and inevitable casualties that were bound to occur in a place like Jenin, where terrorists deliberately hid themselves among civilians.

The senator was critical of the UN for not confronting the Palestinian government on "the use of a UN-run camp as a launching pad for terrorism," saying "it seems intent on smearing Israel for its legitimate response to that terror."

Senator Biden encouraged the UN to accept what he feels were Israel's reasonable requests based legitimate concerns. He further criticized the UN team for their absence of ever investigating actual crimes committed by Arab governments, including the Hama massacre and al-Anfal Campaign.

Other controversies

• Popularly watched was the footage captured on video by an Israeli drone flying over Jenin on April 28. Palestinian pallbearers carried a green blanket-wrapped "corpse" who was accidentally dropped and then stood up and placed himself back in the blanket. He was taken to a staged funeral.[29][30]

• During the battle, Dr. David Zangen, chief medical officer of the Israeli paratroop unit that was fighting in Jenin, reported that the IDF had worked to keep the local Palestinian hospital open and that Israeli doctors had offered the Palestinians blood for their wounded, who then refused to be given "Jewish blood". Col. Arik Gordin of the IDF Office of Military Spokesmen has stated Israel subsequently flew in 2,000 units of blood from Jordan and arranged 40 more units of blood from the Muqased Hospital (East Jerusalem), which were sent to the Ramallah and Tulkarm hospitals, and also facilitated the delivery of 1,800 units of anti-coagulants that had come from Morocco.

See also

• Al-Aqsa Intifada
• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 2002
• Operation Defensive Shield
• Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• IDF Caterpillar D9
• Urban warfare
• Pallywood
• Jenin, Jenin

External links

Reports by human rights groups, the UN, the IDF and the PA

• The Battle of Jenin: A Case Study in Israel's Communications Strategy The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
• Declaration on Fact-finding by the United Nations
• Full Text of UN Report
• The Secretary General's report on Jenin
• Human Rights Watch: Jenin War Crimes Investigation Needed
• Full Text of Human Rights Watch Report
• Executive Summary, The Battle in Jenin – The Israel Defence Force’s , Response to the Report by Amnesty International (IDF spokesman's official response to the report)
• Human Rights Watch - Jenin: IDF Military Operations
• Israeli aerial photographs of the combat area
• Collection of Israeli statements regarding Operation Defensive Shield, at Israel's Foreign Ministry website

Press reports, opinions and articles about Jenin battle

Whilst considering these press and news reports, it is important to consider the date. At first, many international newspapers reported the possibility of a massacre, whereas 3-4 weeks on, they often describe the massacre as particularly unlikely.

• Anatomy of Anti-Israel Incitement: Jenin, World Opinion and the Massacre That Wasn't, Anti-Defamation League report, June 2002.
• Urban Warfare and the Lessons of Jenin, analysis in Azure magazine.
• Amid the ruins of Jenin, the grisley evidence of a war crime The Independent
• The media tries to mop up its horrific coverage of Jenin. Honest Reporting
• The Weekly Standard - The Big Jenin Lie
• TIME magazine writeup on Jenin
• A Study in Palestinian Duplicity and Media Indifference Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
• The Road to Jenin - A documentary by Pierre Rehov
• Jenin War Diary of a Hasidic Soldier - April 25, 2002 - Sergeant Major Rami Meir
  • Part I, Part II.
  • Reprint: Part I, Part II.
• "Palestinian fighter describes 'hard fight' in Jenin. Says he didn't see large numbers killed", CNN interview with Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant Tabaat Mardawi (April 23, 2002)
• The Truth about Jenin - Testimony of General Eyal Shlein, IDF Spokesperson, April 12, 2002
• Asia Times: A street fight called Jeningrad by Paul Belden
• The story of D9 bulldozer driver from Yediot Ahronot with Gush Shalom comments
• Palestinian view of UN report

Articles from The Observer and The Guardian

• Ten-day ordeal in crucible of Jenin, Peter Beaumont (April 14, 2002)
• The lunar landscape that was the Jenin refugee camp, Suzanne Goldenberg (April 16, 2002)
• 'We fight like girls and we are accused of a massacre', Ewen MacAskill (April 20, 2002)
• Battle for truth in Jenin, Bryan Whitaker (April 23, 2002)
• Israel accused over Jenin assault, Chris McGreal in Jerusalem and Brian Whitaker (April 23, 2002)
• Not a massacre, but a brutal breach of war's rules, Peter Beaumont in Jenin (April 25, 2002)

Articles from the BBC

• Forensic expert barred from Jenin (17 April 2002)
• Jenin camp 'horrific beyond belief' (18 April 2002)
• Jenin 'massacre evidence growing' (18 April 2002)
• Expert weighs up Jenin 'massacre' (29 April 2002)
• 'No Jenin massacre' says rights group (3 May 2002) - "accuse the Israeli army of committing war crimes" and "Many of the civilians were killed wilfully and unlawfully".
• UN condemns Israel over Jenin (8 May 2002)

Articles from Ha'aretz

• Palestinians: IDF tanks enter Nablus; reservist killed in Jenin (4 April 2002)
• Peres calls IDF operation in Jenin a 'massacre' (9 April 2002)
• Court: IDF can't move bodies; Lieberman: Barak must be ousted (13 April 2002)
• Court rejects petitions demanding IDF not remove Jenin dead (14 April 2002)
• IDF bulldozers buried Jenin dead, Palestinians claim
• Court told: IDF leaving dead to rot in Jenin
• Security Council meets after Israel denies entry to UN team (29 April 2002)
• Ticking bomb

Published personal accounts

The books below present contrasting Israeli and Arab views of the battle. Each is a collection of personal anecdotes, based on the authors' interviews with eyewitnesses / participants:

Israeli Accounts

• Goldberg, Brett (2003). A Psalm in Jenin. Israel: Modan Publishing House [31]. p. 304. ISBN 965-7141-03-6. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help) is a sketch of the experiences of several Israeli soldiers who participated in the battle (either as combatants or auxiliaries such as field medics), based on their accounts and/or accounts of families and friends, in the case of soldiers who fell in the battle.

Arab Accounts

• Baroud, Ramzy Mohammed, editor (January, 2003). Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002. Seattle, Washington: Cune Press. p. 256. ISBN 1885942346. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) is a series of interviews with Arab children and adults who either hid during the battle, or who worked during the battle (such as a Red Crescent ambulance driver,) and describe what they saw and felt. None of the interviewees admit to having fought in the battle.

Related issues to Jenin battle

• Jenin - center of Terrorism
  • "Jenin Al Kassam" A Hothouse of Terrorism
  • Israel Defense Forces' briefing on terrorist activity in Jenin
  • List of suicide bombings originating in Jenin
• Photos of fake funeral in Jenin
  • Israel Defense Forces' footage of the fake burial in Jenin (original link, not working)
  • Israel Defense Forces' footage of the fake burial in Jenin (reprint + video)
• MYTH & FACT of Jenin "massacre"
• 60 Minutes: Pallywood
• Muhammed Bakri's film Jenin Jenin:
  • The Guardian: Israeli censors ban film about battle of Jenin
  • Ha'aretz: Censor bans movie on Jenin offensive
  • Reuters: Israeli Film Board Bans Jenin Camp Documentary
  • "Seven Lies About Jenin", by David Zangen, a combat paramedic and doctor who fought in Jenin slams Bakri movies for telling lies (Maariv - repprint, November 8, 2002)
  • Pictures from Jenin refugee camp
• The Road to Jenin Film by Pierre Rehov, intended in part to expose alleged "propaganda and misinformation spread by Bakri".
• IMEMC:Jenin child tells the story of how soldiers killed his father in 2002