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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20021123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_8142http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20021123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_8142
Israeli Soldier Cited in U.N. Death
1 hour, 11 minutes ago
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) - The initial investigation into the death of a British U.N. official shows he was killed by an Israeli soldier who mistook his cell phone for a grenade during a gunbattle in the West Bank, army radio said Saturday.
The United Nations (news - web sites) disputed elements of the report, including where the shooting occurred. But it welcomed the acknowledgment that Israel was to blame while saying it planned its own investigation.
Iain Hook was shot Friday in the West Bank town of Jenin where he was a senior manager for the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees. He was the first U.N. official to be killed in two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
In other violence Saturday, two Palestinian militants blew themselves up on an explosives-packed boat off the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), injuring four Israeli soldiers on a nearby navy patrol boat in a rare attack at sea.
Meanwhile, Israel also pressed its occupation of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, reoccupied Friday after a suicide bombing in Jerusalem killed 11 people, four of them children. Israeli troops demolished four homes of militants, arrested 26 people, and searched the office of Bethlehem's governor, witnesses said.
In the Jenin shootout, Hook was fatally shot inside the U.N. compound as he was trying to move out staff during a gunbattle between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp, the United Nations said.
Army radio said an initial investigation showed an Israeli soldier had shot Hook as he emerged from an alley where Palestinian gunmen had been firing earlier. The soldier mistook the cell phone Hook was carrying for a hand grenade, the report said.
An army spokesman would not comment, saying investigations were continuing.
Sami Mshasha, a U.N. spokesman, said the United Nations was satisfied with the initial finding that Israel was responsible but disputed elements of the report.
He said Hook wasn't shot in an alley but in the U.N. compound, a cluster of mobile trailers and vehicles clearly marked with U.N. flags and signs and surrounded in some sections by a wall, in others by a fence. He expressed disbelief at how a cell phone could be mistaken for a grenade.
Still, he said, the United Nations viewed the report positively because it clearly identified which side was to blame. "We believe this announcement will only help us in our own investigation," he said.
An investigator from U.N. headquarters in New York was traveling to the region, he said.
Hook's body was expected to undergo an autopsy in Jerusalem before being returned to Britain, he said.
The United Nations also said Israeli soldiers had blocked an ambulance from immediately getting to Hook and that he died before reaching the hospital. The army said Hook was evacuated as soon as possible.
Late Saturday, the Palestinian leadership decided to award Hook its highest medal, the Al Quds Sharif medal, or the Noble Jerusalem medal, and declared him a "martyr" of the Palestinian people, Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) also sent a letter of condolence to Hook's family, the officials said.
An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was also killed in the Jenin clashes. Witnesses say Mohammed Bilalu was shot while throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, who had entered the Jenin camp in search of a wanted leader of the militant Islamic Jihad leader.
During the boy's funeral on Saturday some 2,000 mourners marched through the refugee camp, carrying an empty coffin draped with a U.N. flag in memorial to Hook. They also unfurled banners saying "Israel killed Hook."
Meanwhile, the Israeli military closed Mediterranean waters off Gaza, barring all Palestinian fishing, after Palestinian militants blew up a boat full of explosives late Friday.
An Israeli patrol boat fired warning shots at the boat after it entered Israeli-controlled waters off northern Gaza, an army statement said.
The boat exploded killing the two Palestinians on board. Four Israeli soldiers on the patrol boat were injured, the army said.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, saying its boat rammed the Israeli patrol boat and sank it. The army said the patrol boat was damaged but made it back to shore.
Col. Danny Maoz, a naval commander in the Gaza Strip, said a similar attack was staged in November 2000 off the southern Gaza Strip. In that case, a lone suicide attacker detonated the explosives beside an Israeli patrol boat, but no Israelis were injured, he said.
In Bethlehem, Israel continued its hunt for 30 wanted militants, demolishing the homes of four members of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, witnesses said. Al-Aqsa has been linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah (news - web sites) faction. Two other houses were destroyed Friday.
Troops also blasted their way into the governor's office, removing computers and boxes of papers, witnesses said. Mohammad Madini was not in his office at the time. The army said it was looking into the claims.
So far 26 people have been arrested in the raids in Bethlehem, the hometown of the bomber in Friday's bus attack, which was claimed by Islamic Jihad and the militant group Hamas.
With the incursion in Bethlehem, Israel has retaken control of all Palestinian population centers in the West Bank except Jericho, as it did during major military offensives in April and June.
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