Israeli army sniper leaves British peace activist
brain-dead
By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem
12 April 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=396369

A British peace activist was pronounced brain-dead
yesterday after being shot in the head by an Israeli
army sniper.

Tom Hurndall, 21, from London, was shot while trying
to rescue Palestinian children from a street where
they were pinned down by Israeli gunfire.

He is the third peace activist to be killed or
seriously injured in the occupied territories in the
past month.

His fellow activists were beginning to wonder aloud
last night if they are a target of the Israeli army.
Mr Hurndall was declared brain-dead on arrival at a
Palestinian hospital in Rafah but there were some
reports last night that his condition might be
improving.

Mr Hurndall came to the occupied territories after
leaving Baghdad, where he had travelled as a human
shield before the start of the war in Iraq. His group
of activists was in a refugee camp in Rafah near the
Egyptian border, where Israeli soldiers often demolish
Palestinian homes because they say militants use them
as cover from which to fire.

The civilian occupants of the houses are left
homeless.

Mr Hurndall's group intended to stay the night in a
tent in a street where an Israeli tank frequently
fires into civilian houses, according to Raphael
Cohen, another British activist who was there when Mr
Hurndall was shot. The Independent has witnessed
Israeli tanks firing on civilian houses in Rafah when
there were no militants in the area.

When the activists reached the street, Mr Cohen said,
they found it already under fire and too dangerous to
enter.

The gunfire was coming from one of the Israeli army
watchtowers on the Egyptian border, which surround
much of Rafah. A group of about 20 Palestinian
children – the oldest was about 10, according to Mr
Cohen, the rest younger – were trapped by gunfire in
the street. Mr Hurndall decided to go into the street
with two other activists to bring the children out of
the line of fire, believing they were less likely to
be fired on because they were foreigners.

"Tom went and brought one boy back with him," said Mr
Cohen by telephone from Rafah. "But he saw two girls
were still stuck there. He went back out for them and
immediately he was hit in the head." Like other peace
campaigners, Mr Hurndall was wearing brightly coloured
overalls so that he could be easily identified as an
activist.

"The Israeli army was very aware of our presence in
the area,'' said Mr Cohen.

He said the activists, who have been sleeping in
Palestinian houses that have been coming under fire,
had hung banners around the area saying they were
there. Mr Cohen said Israeli soldiers had "shot the
banners to shreds". The International Solidarity
Movement (ISM), of which Mr Hurndall was a member, has
been heavily criticised in Israel as one-sided.

It is pro-Palestinian but the members are unarmed
non-combatants.

The shooting of Mr Hurndall comes after Rachel Corrie,
an American, became the first ISM activist to be
killed when she was crushed by an Israeli army
bulldozer in Rafah last month. The Israeli army
claimed that it was an accident and said that the
driver of the bulldozer did not see her.

Brian Avery, another American activist, was seriously
wounded last week when he was hit in the face by
machine-gun fire from an Israeli armoured personnel
carrier in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The Israeli army claimed its soldiers were firing at
militants – the activists who were with Mr Avery said
there were no militants in the area – and that the
soldiers did not see Mr Avery.


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