Bloodbath kept from the eyes of the world

AT SOME point in the next few days, when the Israelis withdraw their forces from the Jenin refugee camp, the real story of what happened there will emerge. But it became clear yesterday that the bloodshed has been on a scale notable even in the grim history of the Middle East conflict.
Early yesterday morning 13 Israeli soldiers died in an ambush in the camp’s narrow alleyways, adding to the nine already killed during more than a week of fighting in the West Bank city from which all independent observers have been barred.

Israel Radio reported that more than 150 Palestinians have also been killed. It is a measure of their ferocious resistance that even Israelis have called their stand a “Palestinian Masada”, a reference to the Dead Sea fortress where Jews held out for three years against the Romans before committing suicide in AD73.

Yesterday’s ambush inflicted the single heaviest toll on Israeli forces since the present intifada began 18 months ago, and the casualties were reserve soldiers called up barely a week ago to assist in Operation Desert Shield