Red Crescent begins grim work in Jenin camp

Palestinian medics began searching for bodies in the devastated Jenin refugee camp today, as Yasser Arafat conditionally accepted an Israeli proposal for a Mideast peace summit led by the United States.

Ambulances crawled through the camp’s narrow alleys, where the deadliest fighting in Israel’s 17-day-old military offensive has taken place.

There has been a bitter dispute over what happened during the battle. Palestinians said hundreds of people were killed in the camp, including many civilians, while Israel said dozens died, most of them gunmen.

Fadi Jarar, a medic for the Palestinian Red Crescent, said Israeli soldiers were leading them to the bodies. He said his crew discovered one body under the ruins of a three-storey building. ‘‘We could not pull it out because we were afraid the rubble would collapse on us,’’ he said.

In Israel, meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for a Mideast peace conference led by the US. Sharon told a meeting of business leaders yesterday that he brought up the idea with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and ‘‘this idea is acceptable to the United States.’’

Sharon proposed that Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and Palestinian representatives take part. Sharon envisions a conference without Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom he has branded a terrorist.

‘‘It is really possible’’ to have a conference without Arafat, said Israeli Justice Minister Meir Shetreet.

‘‘Arafat is no longer the head of a state or someone who wants to be the head of state, he is the head of a terror organisation.’’

A senior US official said the idea was discussed as part of a way to move forward politically, but more talks were needed.

Arafat expressed conditional acceptance of the idea. In a phone call to Fox News, he said: ‘‘I am ready for immediate conference, but at the same time immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces.’’

However, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was critical.

‘‘This is an attempt by Sharon to turn the clock many years backwards,’’ he said. Erekat said there is an Arab proposal on the table for Israel to withdraw from all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and Golan Heights in exchange for peace, ‘‘and what is needed from Sharon is to say yes or no to this initiative.’’

Powell yesterday met separately with Arafat and Sharon, but no progress towards a truce was reported.

Powell left for Beirut and Damascus today for talks about growing tension on the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah guerrillas have been firing rockets and mortars at Israeli border posts and villages, drawing Israeli retaliation.

Israel’s security Cabinet, meanwhile, approved the creation of a ‘‘buffer zone’’ in the West Bank designed to make it harder for Palestinian militants to infiltrate Israel. Fences and other barriers are to be erected along parts of the buffer zone, including in the Jerusalem area.

Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar emphasised that Israel was not erecting a border unilaterally. ‘‘We are not talking about a continuous fence, but about different types of obstacles at different places,’’ said Saar.

He said National Security Council head Uzi Dayan proposed blocking roads between the West Bank and Israel and authorising a few crossing points for goods.

The ceasefire line between Israel and the West Bank has never been fortified, as Israeli governments do not recognise it as a border. Lack of a fence means Palestinians can easily cross into Israel. Thousands enter illegally every day, looking for work, and so do suicide bombers and other attackers.

In Bethlehem, large clouds of white smoke, apparently released by Israeli tanks, were reported rising near the besieged Church of the Nativity today.

Witnesses said Israeli troops sporadically fired stun grenades in the area.

But Mazen Hussein, a Palestinian policeman inside the church, said Israeli troops did not try to enter the compound, where up to 200 armed Palestinians are sheltering along with a number of civilians.

In the Jenin camp, several convoys of ambulances drove through the alleys today - a day after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an army plan to bury most of the bodies from the camp in an Israeli cemetery, and insisted the Red Cross monitor the gathering of corpses.

In the camp, medics in surgical masks, latex gloves and white uniforms placed gallons of drinking water in the streets, and residents took them into their homes.

Dr Tim Keenan, who headed one of the Red Cross teams, said water and electricity to the local hospital had been restored. He said his first priority was to look for wounded people. Before the search began, the medics and ambulances were thoroughly searched by Israel troops, Keenan said.

After banning reporters from the camp throughout the battle, the Israeli military took a group of journalists through yesterday. Soldiers said so far they had found 40 bodies, most of them gunmen.

Reporters were allowed to walk down the middle of camp streets, warned by soldiers that explosives still littered the area. The reporters, members of a pool allowed into the camp by the military, saw only one body, but soldiers said others were inside houses or buried under rubble.

There was widespread destruction in the camp, where tanks and bulldozers knocked over buildings during the fighting. In some places, rubble was piled two stories high, with pieces of furniture and personal possessions mixed with broken concrete.

The powerful stench of sewage mixed with rubbish strewn on the camp’s narrow alleyways. Many houses were empty, some with their front doors open.

Some homes had their windows shut, but the sound of children playing and the aroma of baking bread wafted through, indicating that some people were still around.