Families scrabble in the dust to find their dead

When they found the body it was in pieces and so they gathered it all up out of the rubble, great chunks of blackened, rotting flesh with bits of bone sticking out, and piled them up on a blanket. The smell made us retch and stumble away, gasping for clean air. The Palestinians said the putrefying flesh and bone was Mohammed Massoud Abu Sb'a.

The people of Jenin refugee camp returned to look for their dead yesterday amid the devastation that the Israeli army had made of their homes. The destruction was more complete than an earthquake, yet the Israelis have not allowed in any heavy lifting equipment, so the Palestinians dug out the bodies with their hands, scrabbling in the dust and heaving away the broken blocks.

Aid workers and human rights monitors have started to call this ground zero. The television pictures do not convey the devastation. You have to come here to walk over the dust and rubble that used to be people's homes, picking your way through the little pieces of their lives, the children's schoolbooks and discarded clothing. You have to smell the stench of death that clings to certain corners. The piles of rubble tower high above your head and the work of removing the bodies is nerve-racking and haunting.