The report is all that remains of what was originally intended as a detailed fact-finding mission backed by the UN security council.
After initially agreeing to cooperate, Israel objected to members of the fact-finding team and then imposed a series of conditions which led the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, to call off the mission.
In May, the idea was revived by the UN general assembly, which asked Mr Annan to make a report "drawing upon the available resources and information".
Geographically, the brief was extended to cover events in other Palestinian cities.
The report contains no new first-hand information. It is based on submissions from UN members and documents that were either already published or submitted by non-governmental organisations. Its main points include:
· Operation Defensive Shield began on March 29 with an incursion into Ramallah, during which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) seized most of the buildings in the headquarters compound of Yasser Arafat. Operations followed in Tulkarem and Qalqilya on April 1, Bethlehem on April 2, and in Jenin and Nablus on April 3. By then, six of the largest cities in the West Bank, and their surrounding towns, villages and refugee camps, were occupied by the Israeli military. The IDF announced the official end of the operation on April 21.The withdrawals were, in general, not to pre-March 29 positions, but to positions encircling the cities. Since then, the IDF has made more incursions.
· Operation Defensive Shield involved Israeli troops and vehicles entering cities and imposing curfews. The incursions were accompanied by the entry into nearby villages and refugee camps. Cities were declared "special closed military areas".
Movements of international personnel, including humanitarian and medical staff, human rights monitors and journalists, were restricted. The curfews brought severe hardship to civilians, compounded by military activity, often including the use of heavy weaponry.
· The IDF arrested Palestinians who they believed were involved in armed action against Israel. In most of these incursions the IDF also destroyed infrastructure they believed to be part of the operating capacity of militant groups, and infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority security services.
· The sealing off of areas during the operation meant that humanitarian workers were unable to deliver assistance. There were also cases of Israeli forces not respecting the neutrality of medical and humanitarian workers, and attacking ambulances.
· There were numerous reports of the IDF compelling Palestinian civilians to accompany them during house searches, check suspicious subjects, stand in the line of fire from militants, and in other ways protect soldiers. Soldiers have acknowledged that they forced Palestinians to knock on doors for house searches, but they and the government deny the deliberate use of civilians as human shields.
· According to local human rights groups, more than 8,500 Palestinians were arrested between February 27 and May 20. Reportedly, most of the 2,500 Palestinians arrested during the first wave of incursions in February and March were released within a week, whereas many of the more than 6,000 Palestinians arrested during Operation Defensive Shield after March 29 were held for longer periods without any outside contact.
· Combatants on both sides put civilians in danger. Much of the fighting during the operation occurred in heavily populated areas, in large part because armed Palestinian groups put their combatants and installations among civilians.
Overall effects
· A total of 497 Palestinians were killed in the IDF reoccupation of Palestinian area A from March 1 to May 7 2002 and immediately afterwards.
· Palestinian health authorities and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported 1,447 wounded in the same period.
· Round-the-clock curfews affected about one million people. More than 600,000 of them remained under a one-week curfew, while 220,000 urban residents lived under longer curfews without vital supplies and access to first aid.
· Severe internal and external closures continue to paralyse normal economic activity, and movement of people in the West Bank.
· Food became short in parts of the occupied territories. Import restrictions caused food prices in the West Bank to rise a little, and staple goods to become much more expensive in the Gaza Strip.
· More than 2,800 refugee homes damaged and 878 were destroyed, leaving more than 17,000 people homeless or in need of shelter rehabilitation.
· Non-refugee housing in Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin town and Tulkarem, and a number of surrounding villages, sustained damage ranging from minor to structural.
· In eight West Bank districts, schools are estimated to have missed some 11,000 classes and 55,000 teaching sessions.
· Fifty Palestinian schools were damaged by Israeli military action, of which 11 were destroyed, nine were vandalised, 15 used as military outposts and another 15 as arrest and detention centres.
