Palestine Emergency Committee
**Urgent International Alert**
Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre—The Atrocities Must Be Revealed
April 15, Jerusalem. The Palestine Emergency Committee (PEC)--formed of over 70 Palestinian NGOs, grassroots organizations and charitable societies--along with several international NGOs has just returned from Jenin following the delivery and distribution of food, water, clothing, infant needs, and mattresses to refugees who fled the Jenin refugee camp. Since March 29, Jenin is under continued attack, siege, closure and curfew.
The joint Palestinian organizations and international organizations convoy was first met in Jenin with a crowd of enraged refugees from the Jenin camp, who approached the mattress and pillow filled truck in a clear, unanimous cry against the convoy delivery, in demanding "we will not be refugees again." Throughout the hours in which the convoy was in Jenin, including its stop at the Jenin Charitable Society located in the Jenin city center, the Basatin neighborhood, just 1/2 km from the camp, the cry was painfully clear: don't bring us food, just tell the world what you have seen and bear witness. A number of the refugees in the charitable society building, refugees once again, said that the only thing they wanted from the 100 person group of the convoy was to go with them to the camp to help them find the bodies of their loved ones.
The Jenin Charitable Society is now the shelter of over 800 refugees from the Jenin Refugee Camp. The refugees at the Society comprise of the elderly as well as young women and children who managed to escape from the camp. It was rare to find anyone among this large group of refugees who lost only one family member. Most lost several loved ones, if not their entire families.
One elderly woman lost all six of her children. Another small boy, around five years old, lost his entire family in front of his own eyes. He assured people that his family is still there, in the camp, "They are there, I remember, there in the camp, let me show you."
Witnesses recounted how people were buried alive by the soldiers in graves and holes dug in the ground, rows of injured people were laid flat on the ground and were then crushed to death by a tank that drove over their bodies, men were tied and made to face the wall and killed, execution style.
People tell of leaving suddenly and grabbing as many children as possible, often leaving a number behind. Many at the Jenin Charitable Society, who had not eaten for days, can only imagine the decaying or injured bodies of their families under the camp rubble.
The Jenin Charitable Society is one of several locations to which the refugees have fled.
The stories of the Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre are unbearably endless. The PEC is answering to the call of the surviving victims of the massacre to call on the world to bear witness, as the world has already failed them in allowing these crimes to occur, and to continue to occur at this time.
The PEC calls on all people of the world to speak out against these crimes and to place persistent pressure on their local media, international agencies, and governments to make the Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre known.
The Palestine Emergency Committee affirms that though it has been created as a response to the recent atrocities against its people, and is a relief and emergency coalition, its demand is for justice for today's victims and the victims of the past. There is no relief for Palestine while Israel's continued crimes are made into blood-filled realities.
