Israel soldiers shot Hook while “trying to arrange the evacuation of U.N. personnel”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, November 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli army admitted Saturday, November 23, that its troops shot dead a British U.N. worker during an Israeli raid on a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, November 22, and decided to ban all Palestinian fishermen from sailing off the Gaza Strip following a Jihad attack on a patrol boat.

United Nations official is due to arrive in Jenin on Sunday, November 24, to carry out the world body’s own investigation into the death of 53-year-old Iain Hook, reported the BBC’s online news service.

An Israeli army statement said preliminary investigations indicated that two soldiers identified a man in a U.N. compound in Jenin “holding an object that looked like a pistol” and opened fire at him.

Hook, an employee of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), died before reaching hospital, in an incident that drew criticism from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In a statement, the Israeli army expressed its “regret” over Hook’s death, but denied U.N. claims that the army prevented an ambulance from quickly reaching the wounded man.

The Israeli army claimed shooting was coming from inside the compound when the soldiers opened fire.

It alleged that Palestinian fighters used civilians as human shields, including a woman holding an UNRWA flag.

U.N. spokesman Paul McCann refuted Israel’s claim. “From our inquiry so far... this report of firing from the compound is totally incredible,” he said.

Hook, he added, had been on his cell phone moments before he was shot, trying to arrange the evacuation of U.N. personnel.

On Friday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was “deeply disturbed” by Hook’s death.

The aid worker was involved in a project to rebuild Palestinian homes which were destroyed during previous Israeli operations.

“From the first results of the enquiry, it appears that the shots came from the Israeli side, and that a soldier fired in error at the employee,” it reported quoting findings of an investigation by the Israeli army.

The radio said Hook was “hurrying out of the building, a mobile telephone in his hand, [and] a soldier thought it was an attempt to attack the soldiers.”

On Friday, the U.N. accused Israeli soldiers of delaying an ambulance which had come to Hook’s aid, the BBC said.

The U.N. said in the statement he had died before reaching the hospital. “It is not known at this time whether the delay resulted in the death,” the statement said.

UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, voiced “shock and outrage” at Hook’s death, but 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.”

Meanwhile, Israel has banned all Palestinian fishermen from sailing off the Gaza Strip, after Jihad resistance fighters detonated a boat full of explosives near an Israeli naval patrol vessel.

Two Palestinians were killed and four Israeli sailors wounded in the attack.

The Israeli military said the fishing boat was spotted as it was entering Israeli waters, which are banned to Palestinian vessels.

The patrol boat approached it and Israeli soldiers sprayed water at the fishing boat and fired warning shots in an attempt to force it back into Palestinian waters, Israeli military officials claimed.

The fishing boat then exploded, injuring the Israeli servicemen and lightly damaging their boat.

Israeli troops carried out more raids in the West Bank, following Friday’s re-occupation of Bethlehem.

The army destroyed four homes of suspected Palestinian fighters in the area on Saturday.

Troops raided the office of the governor of Bethlehem, Mohammad Madini, and were seen carrying out computers and boxes of papers.

The man named by the Islamic Jihad as the attacker in Thursday’s bombing, 23-year-old Nael Abu Hilail, came from Bethlehem.

On Friday Israeli soldiers destroyed his home and arrested some of his relatives. Local media say 26 suspects have been abducted in the Bethlehem area so far.

Along the same line of Israeli aggressions, several groups of Jewish youths went on the rampage Saturday, damaging Arab Israeli property in Jerusalem, and stabbing an Arab student in the back, an Israeli police spokesman said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

In Kiryat Yovel, a neighbourhood close to the site of Thursday’s bombing, three Jewish youths attacked an Arab student who was living in the student dormitories in the area, stabbing him in the back but only lightly wounding him, police spokesman Shmulik Ben Ruby said.

“They heard him speaking Arabic on his cell phone and they stabbed him in the back - we think it was with a knife,” he said, saying searches for the attackers were underway in the area.

In the same neighbourhood, a group of over 40 youths stormed into an all-night Lebanese bakery situated in a petrol station, smashing the windows and destroying tables and chairs, police and the owner said.

“There was a great big group of them - they stormed over and broke the windows and chairs,” the Lebanese owner, who gave his name as Mudi, told AFP.

“We managed to protect ourselves by locking ourselves in a room, but the police turned up within 10 minutes.”

Ben Ruby said that so far, three people had been arrested and that the police were searching for the other perpetrators.

Elsewhere, in the occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Abu Tor, the tyres of 11 Palestinian cars were slashed, Ben Ruby said.

Earlier, Israel army radio said that groups of angry youths threw stones at Israeli Arabs driving in the Kiryat Menachem area, breaking the sun roofs of two taxis. 

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