All of these questions hover in the small house in the Jenin refugee camp, which was entered by soldiers a little over two months ago. The soldiers handcuffed and beat the owner - sanitation worker Husni Amer, 45, and a father of five, who worked for the Nazareth Municipality for 25 years. Amer and his brother Mohammed were taken into custody. Only Mohammed returned.

For two months, the family had no idea what had happened to Amer. Last Sunday, a letter from the Palestinian Office of Civil Affairs arrived: "To whom it may concern: We have been informed by the Israelis that Husni Amer of the Jenin refugee camp is dead and that his body is at Abu Kabir. We will take care of having the body transferred to you."

A few days before, someone had brought them a printout from the IDF Spokesman's English Website (www.idf.il/english/news/jeninkilled/stn) dated May 10. Amer is included on the list of "terrorists killed in the Jenin refugee camp: Husni Amer, 45, died of his injuries on April 7. Before he died, he told those present and those who tried to help him that he had been beaten by Arabs."

"Welcome to hell," reads the graffiti on the concrete blocks of IDF Checkpoint 250 at the northern entrance to Jenin, perhaps the most remote and desolate of all the checkpoints.

Amer's eldest son Nidal is 15. His body is small and frail because of his heart disease. He is treated at the Anglican hospital in Nazareth, in the city whose streets his father swept for a quarter of a century - a sanitation worker who had an entry and work permit until all access was closed off last July. Since then, Amer had been unemployed, apart from two months when he made coffee and tea in the UNRWA offices in the camp for NIS 50 a day.

The second son, Mustafa, 12, says he heard his father's screams on that awful day, coming from the apartment beneath theirs, which his unemployed father built in the hope of being able to rent out.

"Then they took my father away," the boy said softly. Husni Amer also left behind three daughters - Yasmin, 10, Hana, 8, and Samah, 5.

On Sunday, April 7, the family woke up at about 7 A.M. Helicopters hovered over the camp and tanks were encircling it. This was a few days after the IDF entered the town, but before the camp was occupied. There was some gunfire and then Mohammed heard loud knocking on the door. When he opened it, he saw his brother Husni with a large contingent of soldiers right behind him - he estimates that there were 20-25 of them. The family was asked to leave the house. The soldiers were nervous, says Mohammed, Husni's senior by six years, who also worked in Nazareth for 25 years.

After the soldiers searched the house and a grove next to it that belongs to the family, they ordered the brothers to go into Husni's house and to sit on the floor. "What's this drawing?" one soldier asked, pointing to the drawing on the wall. "Is it a map for the hoodlums?" Husni tried to explain that it was children's artwork. The soldier handcuffed both of the men. Then he started to beat Husni. Young Mustafa was sent to bring the hoe with which his father was beaten. While the beating was going on, Mohammed was standing handcuffed by the door, surrounded by soldiers and helpless to do anything. According to Mohammed, an officer in the room ordered the soldier to administer the beating. The soldier beat Husni in the back of the neck, the stomach and the back. Mohammed says it lasted about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Every once in a while, they stopped and asked Husni about the drawing on the wall. "Say that these drawing are for the hoodlums and we'll stop the beating," he was told. Similar drawings are found in many homes in this refugee camp, where the children have nothing else to play with except a piece of chalk and the wall.