Today was the day that the cleanup of 'ground zero' at the Jenin refugee camp was finally to begin after over three months of false starts. UNRWA had been in extensive negotiations with the Israeli army to remove the debris as well as the unexploded ordinances that still litter the site. The cleanup project will take three months and involves coordination between Israel, the U.N and the Palestinian.

At nine am this morning the U.N was informed by the Israeli army that curfew was declared, effective immediately, due to `security reasons' thus postponing the cleanup yet again. Today's development comes as no surprise to anyone here.

Meanwhile, in the camp, the rubble (spanning about length of three football fields and 30 feet high) lies untouched, children play amidst the raw sewage that lies in open pools along street, there is no running water, and the families that were living in the 160 demolished houses remain homeless.

The Constant Confusion of Curfew

One of the daily deadly perils in Jenin is the constant confusion over curfew. Although curfews here are usually announced on television and radio late the night before, the Israeli army is notorious for changing it's mind with little or no warning. This has proven deadly because the military has a habit of declaring curfew in Jenin by means of driving through the town and camp using loudspeakers punctuated by heavy fire aimed directly at civilians.

For example, last night after 8PM multiple tanks rolled into the camp and then the city to impose night curfew. There was heavy firing aimed directly into homes in the camp. This was clearly visible to us due to the use of night tracers on the bullets and flares in the sky. At approximately 1 am the television announced that the curfew would be lifted the following day from 8AM to 8PM. Jenin's population went to sleep believing that they would go to work, shops would be open, and their children could attend summer camp in the morning. Few people heard the jeeps, with their limited range loudspeakers, drive through random neighborhoods at 6Am to say that indeed, there would be curfew this day.

At 8 AM Jenin became a bustling city of shops, cars and pedestrians. Although UNRWA was informed of the curfew at 9AM, it was 10:30 AM before a local summer camp was told to send all their children home immediately as the tanks and jeeps were on their way in. Within a half hour vendors in the open air market were scuttling for cover and people rushed to get their homes as the tanks rolled in to town. Thankfully no one has been killed in the past 24 hours. However, this curfew confusion is exactly what precipitated the deaths of three children and an elderly man, shot dead by Israeli tank fire in the marketplace, when we arrived in this city a month ago.

A `Quiet' Week in Jenin

This constitutes a `quiet' week for Jenin. Constant military presence, shooting at civilians, children and ambulances is no longer worthy of the world's attention. Of course it is not quiet and a war continues to be waged daily against the population here. Families are broken by the deaths of loved ones and the imprisonment of Jenin's young men, fathers, brothers, and sons, held indefinitely in administrative detention without charge. Ambulances have been fired upon this week and continue to be held for long periods at checkpoints while emergency patients await treatment. Two journalists were recently shot, one killed and children are fired upon routinely.

For day-to-day details of the occupation of Jenin please call

Rebecca Murray 972 55 558 954 or 972 53 869 307

Juliana Fredman 972 67 373 467

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT www.palsolidarity.org