The camp, home to 40,000 refugees before the hostilities, has been completely destroyed and its rebuilding is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Its residents have sought shelter in other Palestinian refugee camps.
Gil Ronen observes in Israel National News:
Nahr el-Bared, which had 40,000 residents ten weeks ago, now has less than 1,000, possibly less than 100. The rest have either fled or died. The total number of civilians killed is not known, but the reports that have come from Nahr el-Bared over the past few weeks do not bode well. "The total death toll from the battle that has been raging since May 20 has exceeded 200," says one report, and explains that it is quoting "estimates not taking into account. "The army is not letting anyone in here so no one can see the massacres they have committed"he bodies of Islamists remaining inside Nahr al-Bared camp."
"The army is not letting anyone in here," said an Arab from inside Nahr el-Bared who was quoted in an earlier report by IRIN News, a UN-sponsored news agency, "so no one can see the massacres they have committed."
Despite all this, the international community and world media appear relatively unconcerned by what may well turn out to be a massacre of civilians at Nahr el-Bared, and by the "ethnic cleansing" which has turned it into a ghost town. Video aired on Al Jazeera TV, however, shows scenes that would have elicited great furor, had they occured in a town that was under Israeli attack.
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