Israelis Say Arab Dead in Jenin Number in Dozens, Not Hundreds
As of this afternoon, the army had yet to allow the Red Cross, the local Red Crescent or the United Nations agency that operates refugee camps into the camp to collect the dead and wounded or to bring relief to the untold numbers of residents hiding in intact buildings.

When reporters moved through the camp with Israeli soldiers, pigeons and chickens were the only living creatures in the streets, but other reporters who had visited the camp on their own found clusters of residents hiding in the darkened, waterless hovels.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the army announced tonight that it would start collecting bodies on Monday with Red Cross observers present. Then, if the Palestinian Red Crescent refused to take possession of the bodies, the army said it would bury them temporarily.
Even then, the full toll is not likely to become known unless the rubble is sifted.

If the death toll is not clear, the destruction is. In the best of times, a Palestinian refugee camp is not a pretty sight. Set up in 1948 to house families displaced in Israel's struggle for independence, they have evolved into tangled alleys of elemental concrete blocks, teeming with children, chickens and the occasional goat. They have also become cauldron of Palestinian resentment; the army said 23 of the last 100 suicide bombers had come from the Jenin camp.

It was through this warren that the bulldozers churned while rockets rained down. Today, the main street through the camp, Al Awde Street, was a muddy trail among sheared-off storefronts, broken slabs of concrete dangling by reinforcing rods, water burbling from broken pipes, tangles of electrical cable and shattered shops spilling goods.

Plastered walls were dotted with bullet holes. Many windows were shattered and some scorched by heavy explosions.

At one broad square where at least 20 houses had recently stood, the rubble had been bulldozed into tall mounds to clear roads for tanks, one of which lazily swiveled its turret.

If people had been crushed in the wreckage, there was no way to tell. Tanks and bulldozers had rolled over the debris, compacting it and covering it with dust and mud. It was here on Tuesday, Israeli officers said, that the soldiers walked into the trap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/15/international/middleeast/15JENI.html?todaysheadlines