Israel Admits One of Its Soldiers Killed U.N. Official in Jenin

The Israeli military admitted tonight that it was a shot fired by one of its soldiers that killed a senior United Nations official on Friday at the agency's compound in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

But the admission was spiked with a countercharge that seemed likely to increase friction between the government here and the United Nations, angry at the death of the official, Iain John Hook, a 54-year-old Briton who oversaw the rebuilding of part of the camp.

The Israeli statement, released late tonight, said Palestinian gunmen had been firing at soldiers from inside the small United Nations compound — a potentially serious accusation given the implication that United Nations officials were sheltering the gunmen in some way. An Israeli soldier then fired at Mr. Hook inside the compound when he saw "an object which resembles a pistol" in his hand, the statement read.

Earlier today, the Israeli Army radio reported that the soldier mistook a cellphone Mr. Hook was carrying for a hand grenade.

A United Nations spokesman said Mr. Hook was trying to evacuate staff members after a gunfight erupted near the agency's compound, Reuters reported. The spokesman, Paul McCann, said that based on the agency's preliminary inquiry "the report of firing from the compound is totally incredible."

Earlier in the day, another spokesman for the United Nations sharply questioned the army radio reports that the soldier believed Mr. Hook to be carrying a grenade. "We don't find this argument to be convincing," said the spokesman, Sami Mshasha.

On Friday, the United Nations here also accused Israel of delaying an ambulance sent to evacuate Mr. Hook, a concern echoed in New York by the secretary general, Kofi Annan. Military officials have denied the charge.

There is a long history of tension between Israel and the United Nations, which Israel considers to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and specifically with the agency that Mr. Hook worked for: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, created to administer Palestinian refugee camps set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Mr. Hook died on a day in which the Israeli military moved into the Jenin camp to arrest a suspected member of the militant Islamic Jihad. Witnesses said a gun battle then broke out between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, though the statement tonight was the first saying gunmen were firing from in and around the United Nations compound.

Mr. Hook's death came during the scattered violence after a suicide attack in Jerusalem on Thursday killed 11 Israelis, 4 of them children. In response, the Israeli military again seized control of Bethlehem, where the bomber lived, a move that in effect re-established nearly full Israeli control of the West Bank.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/international/middleeast/24MIDE.html