A MONTH after Israel thwarted a UN probe of its actions in the Jenin Refugee Camp, fresh evidence of abuses has emerged, this time from a soldier who says he demolished homes without giving Palestinians a chance to escape. Moshe Nissim, driver of a massive army bulldozer during the incursion, told Yediot Ahronot newspaper in an interview that he was in too much of a hurry to care about whether people might die from his actions.

"Over the loudspeaker, they were told to leave their houses before I destroyed them. But I did not give a chance to anyone. I did not wait. I did not touch the house and wait for them to come out. I would simply give the house a massive blow so that it would collapse as quickly as possible. I wanted to do it as quickly as possible in order to get to other houses. To do a lot."

Mr Nissim said that he acted amid rage over the many booby traps planted by Palestinian fighters and sympathy for the other soldiers who faced dangers during the incursion, launched after a spate of devastating suicide bombings in Israel.

In Jenin camp in May, The Scotsman correspondent was witness to Palestinians digging through the rubble to extract the remains of a wheelchair-bound man whose house was demolished on top of him.

His family said the Israeli soldiers did not give them a chance to remove him from the building.

"I am certain that people died inside these houses but it was difficult to see," Mr Nissim said. "There was a great deal of dust and we often worked at night. I got a great deal of pleasure from every house that came down, because I knew that they do not care about dying, and that losing their house hurts them more."

He said he drank from a whisky bottle as he operated the bulldozer, from which he had hung the flag of his favourite football team, Beitar Jerusalem.

He said he was disappointed when the army eventually ordered him to pull his vehicle out of the centre of the camp "because it did not want the photographers and journalists to see us at work".

The bulldozers left 3,000 people homeless by levelling a 3,500 square meter area of the camp, according to the UN.

Mr Nissim said: "We gave them a football field to play in. It was our gift to the camp and it was better than killing them. They will be quiet now."

Mr Nissim's account is at odds with the official Israeli version that civilians were given a chance to evacuate their homes and that the houses were destroyed out of military necessity, for instance to remove bases of snipers.

The army has awarded a citation for excellence to Mr Nissim's unit for its service in the camp, according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem and Ha'aretz newspaper. The army spokesman did not respond when asked of this.

Other soldiers in the operation have recalled the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and the blocking of medical assistance to the wounded, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The army lost 23 soldiers in fighting in the camp, which was widely booby trapped by Palestinian fighters. More than 50 Palestinians were killed, including soldiers and civilians.

Human rights groups that investigated the fighting said no evidence existed to corroborate claims of a massacre. However, they stressed there was evidence of grave human rights violations by the Israeli troops.