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UN to Send Jenin Fact-Finding Mission as Israel Continues Offensive Killing 7 Palestinians in Gaza & Ramallah

UN to Send Jenin Fact-Finding Mission as Israel Continues Offensive Killing 7 Palestinians in Gaza & Ramallah

HIGHLIGHTS: Final Resolution Avoids the word 'investigation'.
Five Palestinians Killed in Gaza; A 6TH. in Ramallah.
Israeli Occupation Troops Enter 'Beit Djana'.
Israeli Tourist Stabbed to Death in Egypt.
Israel Rejects Arafat Proposal to Try Zeevi's Assassins.

STORYThe UN security council has decided to send a fact finding mission to Jenin as Israel sends its occupation troops in a new incursion into Palestinian-ruled territory killing five Palestinians in Gaza and a 6th in Ramallah. An Israeli tourist was meanwhile stabbed to death in Egypt and an Israel tourist was stabbed to death. In another development Israel has rejected a Palestinian proposal to try Zeevi's assassins in a Palestinian court of justice. (Read photo caption below)

The U.N. Security Council voted for a U.N. fact-finding mission on Israel's savage military assault in the Jenin refugee camp, getting the green light from Israel which claimed it had nothing to hide.

The final resolution drafted by the United States avoids the word "investigation" and welcomes efforts by U.N.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan to "develop accurate information regarding recent events in the Jenin refugee camp."

Palestinian U.N. observer Nasser al-Kidwa said the vote was crucial. "We believe a serious war crime was committed, a serious massacre was committed, and therefore some people will have to be held responsible," he said.

Bush's spokesman said the U.S. president wants the facts to come out about the Israeli attack on the camp.

COSMETIC WITHDRAWAL FROM JENIN & CAMP

The occupation army which says it has withdrawn Jenin and its refugee camp have at the same time thrust into the West Bank village of Beit Dajan, near Nablus.

An army statement said Israeli forces had "completed their mission in Jenin," but remained around the city.

Amnesty International said there were indications of serious human rights abuses by Israel at the camp, including houses demolished with people still in them and alleged executions.

Refugees buried their dead and sifted through flattened homes in the Jenin camp.

SIX PALESTINIANS KILLED IN GAZA; A 7TH. IN RAMALLAH

Violence meanwhile flared up in the Gaza Strip, where six Palestinians, including a bomber, were reported killed.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian bomber blew himself up in a car outside the Gush Khatif bloc of Jewish settlements but, according to Israeli sources, caused no other casualties.

It was the first bombing of its kind since two that killed a total of 14 people during Secretary of State Colin Powell's abortive peace mission to the region. Powell left on Wednesday.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops were reported to have killed five Palestinians.

The Gaza Strip had been relatively quiet during Israel's savage West Bank offensive into Palestinian-ruled cities.

In Ramallah, a Palestinian doctor said an Israeli sniper had killed a 14-year-old boy, just before the army lifted a curfew.

TOURIST STABBED TO DEATH

In Egypt, a 40-year-old Israeli tourist was stabbed to death near the Sinai resort of Nuweiba, Egyptian security sources said, adding that his body had been found on Thursday night.

ISRAEL REJECTS ARFAT'S PROPOSAL ON ZEEVI'S ASSASSINS

As delegates at the United Nations voted unanimously late on Friday to send a "fact-finding team" to the West Bank city, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sought a way out of Israel's siege of his Ramallah compound by suggesting the suspected killers of an Israeli cabinet minister be tried in a Palestinian court. Israel spurned the offer.

Arafat's offer was relayed by his adviser Mohammed Rashid, who said "The Palestinian side accepts and welcomes the call by President Bush to submit those accused of killing Zeevi to the Palestinian justice (system). "

Bush said on Thursday that Zeevi's suspected assassins, from the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), should be brought to justice, but did not say where.

The PFLP said after Zeevi's shooting in a Jerusalem hotel that it had killed him in revenge for Israel's assassination of the group's leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August.

Rashid said the suspects had been moved to the presidential compound from a prison in Nablus in February for investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who sent tanks to Arafat's offices when he launched the West Bank offensive on March 29, has said he will maintain the siege until the suspects are handed over.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the United Nations, speaks to reporters after an open meeting of the Security Council on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and a new resolution calling on Israel to withdrawal its forces from Palestinian cities Friday, April, 19, 2002. Al-Kidwa accused Israel of the "wide-ranging massacre" of women and children in the Jenin refugee camp.(AP Photo/David Karp)
- Apr 19 4:18 PM ET

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