British Foreign Secretary Summons Israeli Ambassador

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 14, 2002

British Foreign Secretary Summons Israeli Ambassador

Israel's ambassador to London has been summoned to the Foreign Office to explain his country's actions in the West Bank.

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Israel's ambassador to London has been summoned to the Foreign Office to explain his country's actions in the West Bank.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he was "disturbed" by reportsof hundreds of deaths and casualties in the Jenin refugee camp at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force.

Straw met the Israeli ambassador Zvi Shtauber on Friday afternoon to express these concerns.

After speaking to Ann Clwyd, a member of parliament from the Labor Party who is in Jenin on a fact-finding mission, the foreignsecretary said: "I am profoundly concerned by what she has told me,passing on eyewitness accounts from the camp.

"I am disturbed by these further reports relating to the conduct of the Israeli Defense Force -- a matter which I raised with (foreign minister) Shimon Peres on April 11."

Britain's ambassador to Tel Aviv, Sherard Cowper-Coles, expressed similar fears to Israeli officials.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "British officials told the Israeli government that the allegations against the Israeli Defense Force were serious."

"They added that it was in Israel's interests that they should be addressed, preferably by allowing international organizations into the camp so that the international community could make its own judgment about what had happened," he added.

Straw said: "The latest deaths from the suicide bombing in Jerusalem, alongside the deaths of innocents in the Jenin refugee camp, are appalling."

He urged all parties to sit down with Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, who is on a crisis mission in the Middle East,but has so far failed to force an Israeli withdrawal.

Although Britain has called for the Israelis to withdraw, Downing Street has not yet committed to a U.N. suggestion to send an international force into the territories.

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