Briton killed in Jenin 'pleaded for ceasefire'

Questions were mounting yesterday over the death of Iain Hook, the British United Nations relief worker killed in Jenin refugee camp, after it emerged that the Israeli army had failed to react to repeated telephone calls from Mr Hook pleading for a ceasefire so he could evacuate staff from the UN compound where he died.

An initial investigation by the Israeli army found that it was an Israeli soldier who fired the bullet that killed Mr Hook, Israeli radio reported yesterday. The Israeli army declined to confirm the report, saying its investigation was not yet finished.

Mr Hook, 54, from Felixstowe in Suffolk, was shot dead inside a clearly marked UN compound on Friday. The Israeli army had surrounded a building nearby where a wanted Palestinian militant was believed to be hiding, and gunfire broke out.

"We requested repeatedly to the Israelis that they cease fire long enough for us to be able to evacuate not only UN staff, but also a disabled woman who was living in the building opposite the one the Israeli operation was centred on," said Paul McCann, a spokesman for UNRWA, the UN agency Mr Hook worked for, which provides humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's office in Jerusalem had also made several calls to the Israeli army without success.

The Israeli army was already coming under heavy international criticism over Mr Hook's death after the UN revealed that Israeli soldiers had blocked an ambulance from getting to the relief worker after he was shot, considerably delaying its arrival.

Israeli radio said yesterday that Mr Hook was not "caught in crossfire" as had been reported earlier, but that an Israeli soldier had shot directly at him. An investigation by the Israeli army found that when Mr Hook emerged from a caravan into the open courtyard of the UN compound, an Israeli soldier mistook the mobile phone he was carrying for a grenade and opened fire on him, the radio reported.

It is not clear why the soldier opened fire into a compound clearly marked with UN signs and a blue flag. "The compound is well-known to Israelis. It is inexcusable to fire into it for any reason," a UN source said yesterday.

This is not the first time UN workers have come under fire in the occupied territories. Two Palestinian UN workers were killed in earlier incidents, and in September the head of UNRWA, Peter Hansen, was fired on by Israeli troops in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Mr Hook had worked for the UN in dangerous places before, including Afghanistan, Kosovo and East Timor. In Jenin he was in charge of a project to rebuild an area of more than 100 civilian homes in the refugee camp, which was completely levelled by Israeli bulldozers in April.

Meanwhile four Israeli sailors were injured yesterday by what the Israeli navy said appeared to be a suicide boat attack on a navy patrol off the coast of the Gaza Strip.