On 6 October 1998, the first three Dag Hammarskjöld Medals were awarded to Hammarskjöld himself, René de Labarrière (killed by a land mine in Palestine in July 1948), and Folke Bernadotte (assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists in September 1948).[4] Beginning in 2001, the UN began awarding dozens of medals each month for the UN peacekeepers who had been killed between 1948 and 2001.