Rula Amin: Resistance at Jenin refugee camp

CNN's Rula Amin

JENIN, West Bank (CNN) -- Israeli military operations continued Sunday in several West Bank cities and towns after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pledge to expedite an end to the offensive.

Some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in the city of Jenin and a nearby refugee camp, where Israeli forces are keeping journalists at arm's length.

CNN Correspondent Rula Amin reported the latest Sunday from her vantage point overlooking the refugee camp.

AMIN: We're standing here on the outskirts of Jenin, just about three to four miles away from the Jenin refugee camp, which has witnessed some of the fiercest battles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen.

The Jenin refugee camp is less than a mile square. It's home for 15,000 Palestinians. The Israeli army is saying this operation is under way in order to hunt Palestinian militants responsible for many of the suicide attacks against Israeli civilians in the last few months.

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What we are hearing from Palestinians inside the camp is that there are fierce gun battles going on, a lot of damage and a lot of destruction.

Eyewitnesses we have spoken to from inside the camp say the Israeli army has brought in bulldozers to knock down houses. Some houses have already been knocked down. The army, the soldiers are moving from one house to another by knocking down the walls between the houses.

The soldiers, it seems, are trying to avoid walking in the alleys of this very crowded refugee camp, where Palestinian militants have taken refuge. And they are actually putting up very strong resistance.

According to the Israeli army, about seven Israeli soldiers so far have been killed in Jenin. Palestinian officials say more than 70 Palestinians were killed in this operation, including many civilians.

It's very hard to verify the numbers because journalists are not allowed in. Also, ambulances have not been able to get in to the camp. Many are wounded and have not been able to get any kind of medical help.

CNN: You say that you're not allowed into the area. Is that due to safety concerns, or do you feel that this is an issue of censorship?

AMIN: The official version that we are getting is that this is for the journalists' safety. Also, that if the journalists are around, the Israeli soldiers would be hesitant to shoot, and they want to give them as much room as possible to act freely without having to be restricted by concern that they would be hitting journalists.

However, the journalists have been protesting that this is actually some kind of censorship because it's preventing us from seeing what is happening. We really don't have much information on what's happening there except from phone conversations that we have been doing with eyewitnesses, with residents in the camp who are very scared, who have been appealing to us, to many other journalists, saying, "You have to come and see what's happening." They say [there's] a lot of destruction, and there are a lot of people who have been killed.