Palestinians bury their dead in mass graves.
[IslamOnline & News Agencies - 4/19/02] JERUSALEM, April 19 - Ten Palestinians were killed by the Israeli occupation army in less than twenty-four hours, as Israel faced down international outrage Friday over its deadly army incursions in the West Bank, with the unswerving support of the United States.
A nine-year-old Palestinian boy and a fifteen-year-old teenager were killed by Israeli fire in separate incidents in the Ramallah area, hospital officials said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Mahmoud Abu Hadra, aged nine, was shot in the abdomen in the suburb of Beitunya Thursday evening.
The second victim, aged about 15, died after being shot in the head Friday morning near the town hall in the center of Ramallah, Atari said. 
Three Palestinian men were shot dead during an incursion by Israeli tanks and troops into the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security and hospital sources said, AFP reported.
Also in the Gaza Strip, two Palestinians were shot dead by the Israeli army near the illegal settlement of Netzarim, a military spokesman said, claiming that the slain Palestinians, who were carrying a ladder for scaling barbed wire, were preparing to mount an attack.
The Israeli spate of killings in the Gaza Strip prompted a Palestinian to blow up his car near the illegal Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Katif in Gaza, killing himself and slightly injuring two Israeli soldiers, witnesses and army sources said.
Earlier, another Palestinian was killed as he tried to enter the Gaza Strip settlement of Dugit, added AFP.
Another Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after attacking an offensive guard with a knife in the West Bank near the border with Israel, a military source said.
In Bethlehem, a senior official of the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas was abducted, as the Israeli siege continued of the Church of the Nativity, where Palestinian resistance fighters, along with clergy and other civilians, have been holed up for several weeks.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources confirmed the Israeli army's claim that it had partially pulled out of the West Bank town of Jenin, where the Palestinians charge hundreds were killed in a massacre of civilians in the refugee camp.
The Israeli army rolled its tanks out of the rubble of the camp early Friday, but kept up positions nearby, as its siege of the West Bank entered its fourth week.
The army had said it would be out of Jenin as well as Nablus by Sunday, April 21, but hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has insisted his forces will stay on for now in Bethlehem and Ramallah, where Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is pinned down by tanks and troops.
The Israeli departure from Jenin left the Palestinians and international aid agencies with the task of repairing the devastation in the refugee camp and burying the unknown number of bodies under the ruins.
U.N. special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen described Thursday, April 18, the situation in the camp as "horrific beyond belief," slamming Israel for not allowing rescue teams in.
"It is totally unacceptable that the government of Israel for 11 days did not allow search and rescue teams to come. This is morally repugnant," Roed-Larsen said.
"The stench of death is horrible," he told AFP while touring the remains of the camp. "We have expert people here who have been in war zones and earthquakes and they say they have never seen anything like it."
At least 500 were killed, with half of the dead being women and children, in a "massacre".
The Israeli army admitted Thursday "dozens" were buried under the rubble of about 100 houses destroyed in Jenin.
"Until now, we have transferred 25 bodies to the Palestinians. We believe that without doubt there are dozens of other dead buried under the ruins," said army spokeswoman Sharon Feingold.
But Israel's right-wing Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit deplored the fact that more "weren't killed in the camp".
Meanwhile, the U.S. unswerving support for Israel continued with diplomats in New York quoting the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, as saying he would veto a draft resolution calling for an inquiry into the events in Jenin and "an international presence that could help provide better conditions on the ground".
Previous motions for international observers to be sent to the region have been voted down by Israel and its powerful ally Washington, which has a permanent seat on the Security Council. Israel didn't even spare the Palestinian children.
U.S. President George W. Bush had angered Palestinians Thursday by calling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "man of peace."
"I do believe Ariel Sharon is a man of peace," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office as he was briefed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on his Middle East tour, which ended Wednesday, April 17 without success.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP Bush's stance "is a reward for state terrorism and the war crimes committed by Sharon".
The U.N. Security Council was to hold more debate on Secretary General Kofi Annan's call to send international troops to the region, after the United States threatened to veto an Arab proposal for an investigation into the Jenin massacre.
U.N. chief Annan had told the Security Council an international military force is required in the region.
"I believe the deployment of a multinational force deserves serious consideration," he said. "The situation is so dangerous that the international community has an obligation to provide this assistance." But Israel quickly rejected the call. "We do not want it and I think also the United States do not want it," government spokesman Avi Pazner said.
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[posted 4/19/02]
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