Straw laments Hook's death as a "terrible event"

LONDON, November 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Great Britain is demanding that Israel fully investigate the death of a British aid worker killed Friday, November 22, by gun fire in a U.N. compound in the West Bank city of Jenin, with U.N. Chief Kofi Annan "deeply disturbed" by his death.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed sorrow over Iain Hook's death, and promised that Israel would fully investigate the incident, Haaretz newspaper said Saturday, November 23.

A U.N. statement said Israeli soldiers refused immediate access for an ambulance to take Hook to the hospital, and that it wasn't known whether the delay caused Hook's death.

An Israeli army spokeswoman, Capt. Sharon Feingold, claimed Hook was evacuated as soon as was possible.

The Jenin Hospital director, Mohammed Abu Ghali, said the bullets retrieved from the victim's abdomen were of the kind generally used by Israeli soldiers.

He said Israel had been barring all ambulances from freely circulating inside the camp.

"They could not reach him on time, and he arrived dead at the hospital," Ghali said.

An Israeli army statement said it hadn't been determined who fired the fatal shots and that the incident was under investigation.

Hook was a senior manager in UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, and was in charge of a 27 million dollars project to rebuild the Jenin camp.

He was the first U.N. official to be killed in two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

The United Nations has expressed grave concerns about the death of Hook, accusing Israel of delaying an ambulance trying to reach the man, reported the BBC News Online.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he is "deeply disturbed" by the death of Hook, 53.

A U.N. statement said Israeli soldiers had delayed an ambulance which had come to Hook's aid, and that he had died before reaching the hospital.

"It is not known at this time whether the delay resulted in the death," the statement said.

Straw called Hook's death a "terrible event" and expressed his condolences to his family and friends.

UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, voiced "shock and outrage" at Hook's death.

Hospital staff show the body of Briton Ian Hook

But he said he hoped Hook's family would "take some small comfort and pride in the knowledge that he lost his life trying to save that of others."

The Israeli military, which regards Jenin as a hotbed of resistance fighters, surrounded the camp late on Thursday, November 21.

They also went into the town of Bethlehem in pursuit of fighters after a bombing attack in West Jerusalem on Thursday left 11 Israelis dead.

Hook was working in his office, in a small U.N. compound of mobile caravans in the northern part of the camp, when he was killed.

He was involved in a project to rebuild homes which were destroyed during previous Israeli operations.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Hook was killed by Israeli gunfire, calling the incident a "new Israeli crime."

He "was killed by the Israeli army, which shows the little consideration the army has for life," Erakat said.

The "murder of a British employee, chief of the reconstruction project in the Jenin refugee camp, constitutes a new Israeli crime," Erakat added.

In a separate incident Friday, Caoimhe Butterly, a young Irish woman active in a Palestinian solidarity group, told Irish radio she had been shot in the foot while trying to protect Palestinian children during the incursion.

Butterly, 23, said in a telephone interview with Irish RTE radio that she had gone to a "flashpoint" in Jenin where children were being shot at by (Israeli) soldiers.

One child was killed, she said, adding: "Three others had just been shot. I tried to negotiate with the soldiers to get them to stop shooting while standing in front of the kids.

"At that stage another tank drove up and lifted up the hatch. I saw the soldier take aim and he opened fire on the crowd of kids.

"Most of them managed to get away. There were about three still in the road. I tried physically to pick them up to bring them into an alleyway. They were small ones. I got shot in the process," she said.

An Irish Foreign Ministry spokesman told AFP: "We were initially told she (Butterly) had been shot in the leg. The Embassy has been in touch with her and she has told them her injuries are not that serious."

Butterly, from Cork in the south of Ireland, has been active in the Palestinian (occupied) territories for some time with other international peace campaigners.

Doctor Mustafa Barghuti, a leading Palestinian rights activist, said Butterly has been living in the camp for the past six months "to provide protection to Palestinians in Jenin against the Israeli army."

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