The UN officers can be seen at an observation post staring at Qana as the Israeli shells rain onto their colleagues and the helpless refugees across the valley. A group of Norwegian soldiers talk excitedly and the camera, its owner obviously growing aware of the gravity of the situation, moves in close-up towards Qana with a zoom lens until the videotape is filled with drifting smoke. Shortly afterwards, the sound-track picks up the familiar buzzing sound of the Israeli "drone", final and irrefutable evidence that later Israeli denials were false -- until the Israelis changed their story last night.

Refugees and UN officers had all talked of hearing the Israeli artillery "spotter" aircraft before and during the Israeli attack on the UN base. But her at last, in living colour, was the proof: distinct pictures of the small Israeli aircraft over Qana, the plane that the Israelis -- for two weeks -- claimed was never there.

One of the UN soldiers who saw the video being made says that neither he nor his colleagues understood in the first few seconds what was happening at Qana. "We know the Israelis are perfect in their accuracy. The previous day, when Katyushas had been fired a couple of miles away, we saw the Israeli return fire come back on the launch site with complete accuracy. We felt so safe about the Israeli artillery that we never went indoors when shells flew over.

"They knew we were here and so they never hit us. So we didn't even wear flak jackets when there were shell warnings. The Israelis knew what they were doing. And then we saw Qana and by the end, none of us believed it was an accident. Yes, the Israelis knew what they were doing. What do you think the drone' was for?"

A UN officer from a NATO nation who saw the videotape -- a copy of which has been obtained by the Independent -- before it was handed over to UN investigating General Frank van Kappen, was more emotional. "If the UN report is diluted to please the Israelis and the Americans, how is the UN going to live with it? How are we on the ground here supposed to pass by that mass grave [of more than 100 civilians in Qana] with a clear conscience?

"I and many others have risked our lives under constant Israeli shelling. We put up with their lies and the arrogance of their explanations. They blame us because we let unarmed Hizbollah men visit their families in our base. But back in 1984, Israeli soldiers were ambushed near my base and we let them in and protected them. Of course, the Israelis don't mention that now. But even if it means the end of my military career, I'll never say this was an accident. The Israelis knew they were firing at innocent people."

The UN have noted that an Israeli officer is also ensuring that his military career remains unblemished. For although the Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, denied knowing that more than 800 civilians were sheltering at the UN base at Qana on 18 April, Major General Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli army chief of intelligence, stated on the day of the massacre that the Israel Defense Forces knew of the civilian presence at Qana and that it was the Israeli army's Northern Command under General Amiram Levine -- already reprimanded after his artillery fired into the village of Shaqra last year and killed a young Lebanese woman -- which ignored the intelligence information.

"Yaalon knows something smells and he's keeping himself out of it," a European UN soldier said. "The Israeli investigation that Dan Harel [the brigadier commanding the Israeli Artillery Corp] carried out was cursory. He said they fired at the Katyushas and that only two rounds hit the UN base. This is bullshit. We know that at least 12 rounds hit the base, seven of them fitted with proximity fuses which explode the shells seven metres from the ground and are designed to kill the maximum number of people by inflicting amputation wounds."

Towards the end of the 8-minute videotape that has so transformed the UN's official investigation, the horror of Qana has been understood by the UN soldiers watching from the neighbouring hillside and by the amateur military cameraman. Just after he films the drone, he focuses the camera on a fire that is raging in the heart of the UN compound, the Fijian battalion conference room that was home to dozens of Lebanese refugees.

The flames burn white and red in the centre of the frame -- the Israeli pilotless drone spotter-plane can still be heard on the sound-track -- and then a pall of black smoke rises from the building in which the Lebanese civilians are being burned alive.

On the videotape, the soldier is now recording the UN radio. An Irish voice says: "Fijibatt headquarters is still under shelling." One of the UN soldiers who stood close to the cameraman was to tell me later that in one observation post a colleague could hear -- a mile away across the valley at Qana -- "a sort of chorus of screaming". A set of still photographs of the shelling, which the Independent has also obtained, shows only one shell falling outside the compound -- in the opposite direction to the Katyusha launch site at which the Israelis claim they were firing.

The last sequences of the tape are taken as the cameraman and his colleagues in the UN's Force Mobile Reserve -- including Irish, Norwegian and Fijian soldiers -- race in armoured vehicles to the Qana base amid a convoy of ambulances. In confusion, a medevac team drop an empty stretcher on the ground and then, drip-feed held over a figure on another stretcher, haul a wounded refugee into an ambulance. The camera moves to a hill where a white-painted UN helicopter with wounded on board is preparing to take off. On the ground in front of it stands an injured Lebanese woman, a bandage round her head, holding two small children by their hands.

As the rotor blades swish the air above them, the Italian pilot climbs out of the plane, shooing them away, moving his arms back and forth, ordering them back from the helicopter.

With a kind of desolation, the woman, in a blue dress, half her face in bandages, leads the two children down the hill from the helicopter, accompanied by two shocked Fijian UN solders.

He also said Hamas was ready to mull over talks with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and recognized the \"right of return\" for Palestinian refugees who fled in the 1948 war and their descendants.

Haniyeh, 42, was officially appointed on Tuesday by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister to form a new cabinet within five weeks after Hamas won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last month.

Hamas chose Ismail Haniya, a 43-year-old Gazan viewed by many Palestinians as a pragmatist, as the new prime minister after sweeping elections on 25 January. The group hopes to complete forming a Palestinian government within two weeks.

\"If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognise them,\" Haniya told the Washington Post in an interview posted on its website on Saturday.

Haniya did not say what form the recognition would take.

Israel on Sunday cautiously welcomed Haniya\'s statement. Meir Sheetrit, a cabinet minister, told Israel\'s Army Radio: \"I wish they would change their positions ... . They (Hamas) may be starting to speak another language.\"

If Hamas were to accept Israel\'s conditions to recognise Israel and renounce violence, \"we won\'t have any trouble speaking to Hamas, and to reach a settlement\", Sheetrit said.

A representative at the US State Department did not immediately return a call seeking official US reaction to Haniya\'s comments.

Ready for talks

Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel\'s destruction, has rejected talks with the Jewish state as a waste of time but it has said lately it could respect some aspects of interim peace deals from the 1990s that it had rejected outright in the past.

Haniya also said Hamas was ready to consider talks with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and recognised the \"right of return\" for Palestinian refugees who fled in the 1948 war and their descendants.

\"Let Israel say it will recognise a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognise the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs,\" Haniya said.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September after a 38-year occupation but has vowed to hold onto East Jerusalem and major West Bank settlements and never allow millions of Palestinians abroad to flood into Israel.

Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967
Middle East War.

\"If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages,\" Haniya said. \"We will establish a situation of stability and calm, which will bring safety for our people.\"

Call for review

Asked whether Hamas would abide by interim agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians, Haniya said: \"We will review all agreements and abide by those that are in the interest of the Palestinian people.

\"The ones that will guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital with 1967 borders.\"

Haniya said: \"We do not have any feelings of animosity towards Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody.\"

Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since the uprising began, but has largely abided by a ceasefire forged a year ago.

Meanwhile, Mahmud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has said in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday with Britain\'s ITV1 he will resign if he is no longer in a position to pursue his peacemaking agenda when the new Hamas government takes over.

But he held back from saying directly he would quit if Hamas continued to refuse to recognise Israel\'s right to exist and renounce violence.

Ever since Hamas's resounding electoral victory on 25 January, Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States, have been rattling their sabers, threatening to punish the Palestinians for electing the Islamic movement instead of the corrupt Fatah group, to run the Palestinian Authority (PA) government.

Israel, a manifestly full-fledged apartheid state, has seriously escalated its institutionalized terror against Palestinian civilians by restricting the movement of individuals and flow of goods and services within the West Bank. Moreover, the Israeli government has decided to permanently stop transferring Palestinian tax revenues to the PA in what is being referred to as "silent induced starvation."

For its part, the US is just parroting Israeli threats, even without bothering giving even a scant thought to the Palestinian view point.

The latest drivel from Washington came on Friday (23 February) when President Bush said that it was up to Hamas to decide if the next Palestinian government would receive aid from the international community (who elected him to speak on behalf of the international community). Bush, probably the most ignorant President America has ever had, said Hamas would have to recognize Israel, disarm, and accept all agreements reached between Israel and the PA to qualify for aid.

Well, Bush and his money can go to hell. The Palestinian people will not give up their homeland and their rights for a monetary bribe from its tormentors. We will not give up our inalienable right to freedom and justice in return for some financial inducements. A free woman would rather starve to death rather than sell her body to an evil blackmailer. And America and Israel are the evil blackmailers of our times.

Besides, why on earth should the Palestinians recognize Israel in return for nothing? Has Israel recognized Palestine so that Palestine could recognize Israel? Moreover, which Israel does Bush and cohorts want us to recognize? Is it I948-Israel? 1967-Israel? Israel with the West Bank? Israel with the Golan Heights? Israel with the Shaba'a province? Israel with East Jerusalem? Israel west of the Apartheid wall? Or, indeed, Talmudic Israel extending from the Nile to the Euphrates.

How could the Palestinians possibly recognize a state that has no borders? Indeed, Has Israel determined her borders?

More to the point, recognition is exchanged between sovereign sates, not between a state and a fragile, autonomous entity languishing under foreign occupation. The PA is not a state, it is not even a state in the making, given the continued and unmitigated building of Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank, which has effectively killed any real prospect for a viable Palestinian state.

And the "disarm" demand. Well, if Hamas and Fatah were to disarm, then, for heaven's sake, who would protect Palestinian civilians from the Nazi-like Israeli onslaught? America? We once trusted America to protect our refugees at Sabra and Shatilla near Beirut in 1982, only to see her allow the certified war criminal Ariel Sharon, in concert with Christian militiamen, to slaughter thousands of helpless women and children, very much like the Gestapo and Wehrmacht did in central and Eastern Europe more than sixty years ago.

Furthermore, It is really difficult to comprehend why only one party to the conflict, and specifically the weaker party, is asked to disarm, while Israel, a nuclear power, which also has the US, the only superpower in the world, at her beck and call, is given carte blanche to murder children, assassinate politicians, terrorize innocent civilians, demolish homes, and reduce Palestinian population centers to new, updated brands of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Bergen Belsen.

Indeed, one is prompted to ask whether the Palestinians pose a real threat to Israel, a country that possesses the most formidable military arsenal in the entire Middle East, including some 600 state-of –the –art fighter Jets, some 5000 combat tanks, and thousands of artillery pieces, as well as the estimated 350-400 nuclear bombs and missiles, with all delivery systems.

Is it true that this state feels threatened by the occupied and tormented Palestinians who have a hard time feeding their children and even a harder time reaching their jobs and schools and colleges and hospitals, thanks to these Gestapo-like Jewish roadblocks and checkpoints whose main function is to torment, humiliate and frustrate these helpless people.

And they want us to accept the "past agreements" reached between the PA and Israel. Well, what agreements? The Oslo Accords? Hasn't Israel killed the Oslo Accords? Does the Oslo Agreement allow Israel to build 280 hateful colonies in the West Bank? Does it allow Israel to build this satanic apartheid wall in the depth of the West Bank?

Besides, are we supposed to accept the Oslo Accords according to whose interpretations? Israel considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem "disputed territories" while the PA consider these territories "occupied" rather than "disputed." And the Americans and the Europeans refrain from spelling out their respective interpretations, opting rather to ask the rapist and his victim to sort out things among themselves.

And the so-called "roadmap"? Well, will Mr. Bush and all other world leaders be nice enough and tell us clearly and concisely which "roadmap" they expect us to accept? We say that because we are affronted with multiple "roadmaps" not just one "roadmap."

So, are we supposed to accept the "roadmap" with the fourteen Israeli reservations (each of which is sufficient to corrode document and eviscerate it of substance)? Are we also supposed to accept President Bush's pledges to Ariel Sharon's, namely that Jewish settlements in the West Bank ought to be annexed to Israel?

The Americans and the Europeans, if they can demonstrate independence from Israel, must first address these concerns before hectoring the victims to accommodate the morbid whims of their victimizers.

In fact, We suspect, in fact we are certain, that the real motives behind the American-Israeli pressure on Hamas is to push the Palestinians to capitulation to Israeli insolence.

Israel, to begin with, doesn't need any recognition from Hamas. However, because Hamas is viewed by some international circles as the last Palestinian effort to withstand Israel's designs to liquidate the Palestinian cause, Israel and the US are effectively trying to push Hamas to the corner in order to demonstrate to the Palestinian people that even Hamas wouldn't do them any good.

This is the truth about the present Israeli-American discourse. They don't want a peace settlement based on international law and human rights and UN resolutions, but one that would reflect Israeli hegemony, insolence and bullying.

Indeed, it is this brazen dishonesty on the part of Israel and the US that prevents Hamas and the vast bulk of Palestinians from taking steps toward a possible peaceful settlement with the Zionist state.

Well, Hamas is damn right. The PA recognized Israel in 1993, and what was the result? Did Israel recognize Palestine? Did Israel stop building settlements? Did Israel signal any readiness to give up East Jerusalem or allow the refugees to return home?

Khalid Amayreh, is a Palestinian journalist from Dura near Hebron. He is frequently published in Al-Ahram weekly and Al-Jazeera

The European Union today released a limited aid package to the Palestinians which it said would help to stave off a looming financial crisis.

The continuation of EU funding to the Palestinian Authority has been under debate since the Islamist militant group Hamas won elections and appointed a prime minister.

"Today I will announce a very substantial package of assistance to meet basic needs," said Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European External Relations Commissioner.

She spoke as EU foreign ministers gathered for talks on how to respond to the impending formation of a Palestinian government by the movement, which does not recognise Israel's right to exist.

The package would total €120 million euros (£82 million), including €40 million to pay electricity bills and €64 million channelled through the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, she said.

"In effect we will pay electricity bills for them, direct to the utilities concerned, including in Israel," she said.

The EU is the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, but its funding has been thrown into doubt by the election of Hamas, which the EU lists as a banned terrorist group.

The move comes after Israel stopped the monthly transfer of $50 million-$55 million (£29 million-£32 million) in tax payments to the Palestinians and US officials warned that Washington could cut off funding.

"The Palestinian Authority cannot achieve balance in its finances without outside help," Ms Ferrero-Waldner said, calling on others, especially Arab countries, to do more to fund it.

She noted that even when Israel transferred the tax revenues which it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, the Authority still runs a deficit.

The EU has also decided to unblock €17.5 million (£12 million) frozen in a World Bank-administered trust fund. The EU originally paid €70 million (£48 million) into this, of which €35 million (£24 million) was disbursed but the remainder stopped over the Palestinian Authority's failure to meet certain benchmarks.

This €17.5 million (£12 million) tranche will be used to pay salaries, and is the only part of the new aid package announced today to be paid directly to the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians' financial troubles are growing acute. James Wolfensohn, an international envoy to the Middle East Quartet which is overseeing the peace process, gave warning in a letter released today that the Palestinian Authority is facing financial collapse within two weeks since Israel has cut off tax transfers in response to Hamas's election victory.

Even if the Palestinian Authority survived with emergency funding, the financial crisis could bring violence and chaos unless the Quartet of major peace mediators developed a long-term funding plan once a Hamas-led government is in place, wrote Mr Wolfensohn in his letter, which the Reuters news agency has seen.

He was expected to brief the Quartet, made up of the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia, on his findings later this week.

In the letter, the Quartet's special envoy said that the caretaker Palestinian government faces a funding gap of $100 million (£57 million) this month and up to $70 million (£40 million) in March, mainly because of Israel's decision to withhold $50 million to $55 million (£29 million to £32 million) a month in tax revenue.

"Unless a solution is found, we may be facing the financial collapse of the PA (Palestinian Authority) within two weeks," Mr Wolfensohn wrote.

He said that the Palestinian Authority will need $60 million to $80 million (£34 million - £46 million) next week to begin to pay wages for February.

"I know I do not need to tell each of you that the failure to pay salaries may have wide-ranging consequences - not only for the Palestinian economy but also for security and stability for both the Palestinians and the Israelis," Mr Wolfensohn said.

But any money raised by Wolfensohn at the Quartet's direction would tide the Palestinian Authority over only until the new Hamas-led cabinet is formed, most likely to happen next month.

The Quartet has yet to agree on what to do once Hamas takes over. There are differences of opinion in the mediating group over how to exert pressure on Hamas to renounce violence, recognise Israel and honour interim peace deals.

But far more worrisome - in words and actions - are our generals, those in active duty and those who once were: Moshe Ya'alon and Shaul Mofaz. They order a strategy of power and more power, from here to eternity. They warn of a threatening future, both in Jordan and in Egypt. They launch provocative acts of aggression on the lands of the West Bank, and continue assassinations while ruining or murdering innocent people (without any ticking time bomb). All of this is to ensure that there will be action and risk, that the army will be given a larger budget, that the arms industry will grow and increase trade and that we will continue to worship our heroes who sacrifice their lives for our security.

Every simpleton knows that there is no existential threat to Israel. Every reasonable person understands that the Israel Defense Forces' excessive operations against the Palestinians stir hatred, anger, fanaticism and a lust for revenge. The aim of the generals' remarks, which were not slips of the tongue, but intentional leaks, is to make us continue to be afraid and continue to allow the killing, destruction, expulsions, roadblocks and apartheid roads, and more and more fresh blows to be delivered, inspired by the vivid imaginations of our generals.

When the past chief of staff - the one who opposed the withdrawal from Lebanon and from Gaza, and destroyed more homes and anything else that stood in his way than anyone else - also joined the group of doomsayers and fear mongers, I was reminded of the speech made by U.S. general and president, Dwight Eisenhower in 1961. In his farewell address to his nation, after serving eight years as president, he warned of the close ties between the army and the huge arms industry (in Israel it combines industry, purchasing and commerce all in one). The huge influence of this industry on all areas of life can lead to the superfluous and dangerous use of unnecessary force. Further on in his address, Eisenhower focused on the need to nurture democracy and conciliation between peoples, and to prevent war and change priorities in the division of manpower and production. The army and military industry are strong and influential, he said, and therefore this influence must be reined in and efforts should be made to build peace, conciliation, freedom and human rights.

The U.S. only realized how right he was after it was too late, when it was becoming mired in the Vietnam War and cultivating the Cold War. In Israel, the IDF became a sacred cow upon the establishment of the state and today the army's top brass is very powerful. The IDF is a conqueror with a free hand on the trigger; everyone salutes it and anyone who criticizes it is marked as a flawed patriot. This army scorns human life and property, mocks the other and abuses injured populations. It is an army that has transformed every village and city into a detention camp for the sake of "our security," while knowing full well that every time it breaks into these places, a response will be provoked that will come at Israel's expense.

The most worrisome thing today is the caution with which people from the peace movement speak about the possibility of reconciliation - even with the Hamas government - lest they be accused of a lack of "nationalism." Also worrisome is the acceptance of the fact that Israel may withhold the Palestinians' money while demanding that they uphold all agreements, at a time when we are the first to violate an agreement.

The hastiness of the criticism, the search for collective punishments and the dispatching of the Palestinians to the Muslim countries, are also a folly that could be dangerous. Apparently our "wise men" will be happy if the Muslim countries once again mobilize against us. Then we will again be able to see ourselves as the ultimate victim of the world, and then - long live the army, long live armaments. And then there will be many festive memorial days.

It does not have to be that way. It can be different. It is possible to try and build conciliation, to try and understand that the Palestinians are also entitled to a state of their own. We have to understand that we are applying a racist, colonialist and contemptible policy that we did not want. Merely saying these things aloud gives us the chills because after all, we thought that we, the Jews, have humanitarian values and that we remember that every person was created in the image of God. If we really do remember this, but continue with our actions against the Palestinians, then all of us are afflicted with split personalities.