The aftermath in Jenin

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nation's top Middle East envoy, stood on a pile of rubble here Thursday and surveyed a landscape of utter wretchedness and destruction.

Just a few feet away, two middle-aged brothers used plastic buckets to excavate the ruins of their former home, uncovering a partial human torso. It was all that remained of their elderly father.

"We've been trying for 11 days to have access," said Larsen, who finally got permission from the Israeli Army to visit the camp on Thursday and witness the aftereffects of the fierce two-week battle that killed 23 Israeli soldiers and a greater though still unknown number of Palestinians.

"What we are seeing here is horrifying - horrifying scenes of human suffering," said Larsen. "Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."

Larsen, who likened the destruction to an earthquake, accused Israel of compounding human suffering in the camp by refusing to permit access by heavy equipment and search and rescue teams with dogs, suggesting that some people could still be trapped alive beneath the rubble.

Palestinians who had been displaced by the fighting in Jenin, meanwhile, continued to trickle home on Thursday. Some sat numbly on the ruins of their former apartment blocks. Others dug through pulverized concrete with buckets, shovels and even their bare hands, searching for prized possessions and sometimes the remains of relatives left behind.