Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided Tuesday night to halt agreement to the arrival of UN fact-finding mission on Jenin refugee camp, Israel radio reported.
However,UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has agreed to postpone the departure of the fact-finding mission according to a UN spokesman later."But he expects the team to be in the Middle East by this Saturday," he added
Sharon's decision was reportedly made after a deliberation by the prime minister.
Earlier in the day, Sharon said that Israel has no choice but to accept the team to the West Bank city of Jenin, and that he feared the results it would produce.
The team led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari is expected to determine what happened during Israel's military operations in the refugee camp, which is believed to be the fiercest fighting during the operations in the West Bank.
There is a huge dispute on the death toll in the refugee camp. Palestinians have claimed that hundreds of people were killed in a "massacre" in the camp, while the Israeli side has been insisting that only dozens were killed.
Under the pressure from the international community, Israel agreed over the weekend to cooperate with the United Nations to investigate into the Jenin affair.
But Israel stressed the fact-finding team could not include UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen or Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson, who are regarded by Israel as biased to the Palestinians.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Sunday that the fact- finding team was not "a team of prosecutors or criminal investigators... They are going to establish the facts."
The other two team members are Cornelio Sommaruga, former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Sadako Ogata, the former UN high commissioner for refugees who is Japan's special envoy on Afghan reconstruction.
Larsen, however, continued his fierce criticism on Israel Monday after a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Larsen said "what I did, on the basis of what I saw, what I heard and what I smelt, was to say that this was shocking and horrifying."
"I think that any decent human being with a heart would have reacted the same way I did and used similar words...I described what I saw, people with their bare hands digging deformed bodies out of the rubble," he said.
The Security Council held emergency consultations Tuesday nightafter Israel delayed the UN fact-finding visit to the Jenin refugee camp, and warned Israel that "no harm must come" to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has been besieged in his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2002)
