Two US trucks delivering food, toys and tents to the Jenin refugee camp were turned away by an angry crowd today in protest at Washington's military aid to the Israeli army, Palestinian sources said.
"The camp's inhabitants are refusing help provided by the US because of its foreign policy concerning the Palestinian question and because the camp was destroyed by USmade weapons," the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member for Jenin, Mr Jamal al-Shaati, said.
The aid was sent by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
A large crowd of the camp's residents, including representatives of all political factions there, threw the goods back into the trucks after they had been unloaded at the camp's entrance, Mr Shaati said.
The trucks, bearing the USAID emblem and US flag, were then forced to leave.
USAID officials in Tel Aviv said they were not aware of the incident.
But a spokesperson for the US consulate in Jerusalem said despite a "mini-demonstration, the trucks arrived in the camp and their content was delivered to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) there."
The relief agency for Palestinian refugees "will distribute US assistance to the camp's residents over the next few days and Jenin's governor publicly thanked us," she said.
But Mr Shaati rebutted the statement, saying that the goods were finally unloaded but "in an UNRWA school outside the camp."
"The residents just don't want US help, is that clear?" said Mr Shaati angrily.
"Tell them (the Americans) that the camp's youth will come and burn the goods if they (UNRWA on behalf USAID) attempt to get them into the camp," he warned.
The refugee camp in the northern West Bank was devastated by the Israeli army's invasion in search of hardline militant groups using the neighbourhood as a base and for launching suicide bombings across the border in Israel.
In a week of bitter fighting, Israel used bulldozers, Apache helicopters and tanks to crush a die-hard group of Palestinian fighters who booby-trapped streets and houses and killed 23 soldiers.
Around 50 Palestinian bodies, most of them fighters, have been found so far in the rubble, but the Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out a "massacre" in the camp, a charge Israel hotly denies.
Washington provides Israel with around three billion dollars of annual aid, of which more than half is military support.
AFP