Are the Israelis guilty of mass murder?

THEY left as departing heroes, waving victory salutes and grinning as they went. But even as Israel’s forces pulled out of the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank, relief workers were claiming the carnage and destruction left behind was like an earthquake.

They spoke of a war crime on the scale of the Bosnia and Kosovo wars.

The United Nations, allowed access after 12 days during which ambulances were turned away and scores of injured bleed to death, struggled to find words to describe the devastation.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special envoy, said simply: "We have expert people here who have been in war zones and earthquakes and they say they have never seen anything like it. It is horrifying beyond belief."

The UN was at last beginning to extract the corpses and search for survivors beneath the rubble, as well as provide food, water and shelter to camp residents. Its officials were unable to bring to mind a time when they had been so obstructed as they had been by the Israelis.

Peter Hansen, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency , who had served in the Balkans, said: "I and my colleagues working in crisis situations for decades do not recall a situation where co-operation from the authorities has been less than what we have experienced from the Israeli government. It is beyond any human decency to let ambulances, food and water stand outside the camp, as has been the case."