BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 22 (UPI) -- U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen maintained Monday what he saw in the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin was "shocking and horrifying" and said there was no reason for Israel to declare him a persona non grata.
Roed-Larsen, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said "any decent human being with a heart" would have reacted the same way when he visited the devastated Jenin camp last week.
After similar comments this weekend, Israeli officials said Sunday they were considering declaring Roed-Larsen persona non grata.
The Jenin refugee camp was one of the primary fronts of the recent Israeli offensive. The Israel Defense Force, reacting to a series of suicide bombings, entered several areas in the West Bank. In Jenin, destruction was particularly widespread, with many of its homes and buildings with their narrow alleyways bulldozed into boulevards. Palestinians have said hundreds of people were buried under the rubble while the Israelis said the death toll was much lower and was mostly militants.
"I saw people with their bare hands digging deformed bodies out of the rubble," Roed-Larsen said after meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in Beirut. "What I did was on the basis of what I saw, heard and smelled. This was shocking and horrifying."
Roed-Larsen said American and Russian envoys who also visited Jenin had the same reaction, adding he was relieved to hear about the fact-finding commission approved unanimously by the U.N. Security Council late Friday.
The commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East took up the flag Monday in Jerusalem, saying some 4,000 Palestinians have lost their homes in Jenin.
Gen. Peter Hansen and the head of the International Red Cross delegation, Rene Kosirnik, said during a joint news conference that actual casualty assessments must wait for the U.N. investigation, but complained the Israelis blocked their ambulances and supplies from the camp even after the fighting ended -- a charge Israeli officials have denied.
Roed-Larson himself put the number of homeless at "about 2,000 people, half of them below the age of 15."
Describing himself a friend to the Israeli and Arab peoples, Roed-Larsen said, "I try to act in an honorable and decent way. ... I can see no reason whatsoever to declare me persona non grata in Israel."
(With Joshua Brilliant in Jerusalem)
