A UN report on an Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp is expected to avoid using the word "massacre", as Palestinians have claimed, but blames Israel for keeping out aid and medical workers after the raid, diplomatic sources said yesterday.
The brief staff report, due to be made public today, is also expected to find that the Palestinians were stockpiling weapons in the West Bank camp - the Israeli justification for launching the raid, the sources said.
Jenin was the site of the fiercest fighting in the Israeli military campaign launched at the end of March after a wave of suicide bombings in Israel.
The 189-nation UN General Assembly ordered the report in May, at the request of Arab nations, after Israel refused to co-operate with a UN fact-finding team, arguing the mission was weighted against it.
One diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "There are going to be things in there that the Palestinians are not going to be happy with, and things that the Israelis are not going to be happy with."
- (Reuters)