Cowering under threat of tank guns

Jenin was silent and terrified as we crept into the outskirts of the embattled city this morning.

From a position overlooking the refugee camp, Israeli tanks and other armour could be seen blocking every entrance and exit from the maze of slums that have been the scene of bloody fighting in which the Israelis have admitted hundreds of people have died.

Jenin town, next to the camp, was in a state of heavily-enforced curfew in which any Palestinian seen on the streets is shot without warning.

On the western edge of the refugee camp, two tanks stood next to one another with their main guns aimed down a slope straight into the buildings where civilians and gunmen have been trapped for more than a week. Buildings smoked beneath the barrels of their guns and the city appeared as dead as the many Palestinians both sides admit have been killed .

Entering the fringes of the camp for the first time since the Israeli incursion, we found scenes of devastation.

Concrete walls had been destroyed by shell fire, a swathe of homes had been demolished to create a broad access route paved with demolished buildings.

One reporter described the camp's centre as looking "as though a giant fist had come down upon it".

Wailing mothers roam the ruined streets, desperate for news of their men. There are claims by some aid workers that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and hurriedly buried in mass graves. Israel denies this, claiming it has been trying to remove the bodies to hand over to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Families search for food after the Israeli army lifted the curfew for two hours. One group, trapped in their home by soldiers for over a week, were given pitta bread and water by neighbours.

An angry crowd gathered round medics lifting a 65-year-old Palestinian woman into an ambulance. An elderly woman shouted: "All the Israelis want to do is torment Arabs. They are killing our children."

Palestinian resistance to the Israeli invasion of Jenin has all-but collapsed.