NY Times.

The United Nations issued a cautious report today dismissing as unsubstantiated Palestinian claims that 500 people were killed when Israeli forces invaded a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin in April.

Stepping gingerly into a battle waged almost as fiercely in public relations as it was on the ground, the United Nations criticized both sides for putting Palestinian civilians at risk.

It suggested the Palestinian Authority was "inducing turmoil, chaos, and instability," and it criticized the Israeli Army for inflicting "severe hardships" on Palestinian civilians through the use of curfews and other measures.

The United Nations study supported previously published accounts that said 52 Palestinians were killed in the Jenin refugee camp, along with 23 Israeli soldiers. In one of the study's equivocal judgments, it reported that "up to half" of the Palestinian dead "may have been civilians."