Evening Star 18 February 2003
UN worker ‘shot in the back’
February 17, 2003 18:29
FELIXSTOWE United Nations worker Iain Hook, who was killed while working at a refugee camp, was shot in the back, it was claimed today.
Mr Hook, 54, died while trying to save his colleagues during an Israeli attack on a UN compound at Jenin on the West Bank
He was trying to evacuate his staff from as Israeli troops surrounded the nearby hideout of a wanted Islamic Jihad leader suspected of masterminding a suicide bombing which killed 14 people.
Mr Hook suffered a single gunshot wound to his abdomen and died in an ambulance on his way to hospital.
At first it was believed he may have been shot after an Israeli soldier thought his mobile phone was a grenade.
Now a new UN report, handed to the New York Times, claims he was shot in the back from at most 30 yards away.
Peter Hansen, commissioner general of UNRWA, said the UN report also found that contrary to some claims by the Israeli government, no Palestinian militants were in the UN compound at the time of the shooting.
The report has yet to be officially published, but it has been presented to the British Government.
Coroner Dr Peter Dean opened and adjourned the inquest into Mr Hook’s death at Ipswich Crown Court in December. A full inquest will take place at a date yet to be fixed
Mr Hook, of Felixstowe Ferry, was head of an #18 million UNRWA project rebuilding the refugee camp in Jenin, and had been working there six weeks. He had previously worked in Kosovo, East Timor and Afghanistan.
