British Peace Activist clinically Dead after being hit by Israeli Sniper Fire in Rafah by Agence France Presse 12:35pm 13th Apr, 2003   April 11, 2003    A 21-year-old Briton was pronounced clinically dead after being hit in the head and critically wounded by Israeli sniper fire in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, eyewitnesses and Palestinian medical sources told AFP.    Thomas Hurndall was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group of pro-Palestinian activists who engage in non-violent action to protect civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, they said.    British peace activist Thomas Hurndall sits on the floor of a home in Rafah, minutes before he left to participate in a protest at which he suffered a gunshot wound to the head, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. Hurndall, age 21, from Manchester, England, had been standing between Israeli troops and Palestinian children when Israeli soldiers opened fire, according to a fellow activist from the International Solidarity Movement who witnessed the scene. He was declared brain dead after arrival at a Gaza hospital. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)    A colleague who witnessed the incident said he was trying to pull two children out of danger with a group of other foreign activists and Palestinian civilians when shots were fired from an army watchtower some 100 metres away. Doctors at Rafah hospital said the young man was pronounced clinically dead shortly after he was admitted. He was later airlifted to a hospital in the southern Israeli town of Beersheva, members of the ISM team in Rafah said.    A spokesman for the British Embassy told AFP his family had been notified.    "He was trying to pull two girls out of danger when he was hit in the head by a bullet," eyewitness and British ISM colleague Rafael Cohen, 37, told AFP.    Cohen, who was standing 15 metres (yards) away when the shooting occured, said Israeli troops were firing over the heads of a group of children playing on a mound of earth and Thomas, who was dressed in a fluorescent ISM jacket, had gone to pull them down.    "At first they were firing several metres over the children's heads but it was getting very, very dangerous so Tom went to help them. He was at ground level when they shot him directly in the head," he said, alleging the troops lowered their aim and deliberately targeted him.    Thomas arrived in Rafah on Sunday after spending several days training in the West Bank, Cohen said. Before arriving in the Palestinian territories, he had been in Iraq acting as a human shield, after which he spent some time in Jordan.    The army would not comment on the incident.    It was the third such incident in the past four weeks in which a foreign peace activist was injured or killed during Israeli military operations.    Last Saturday, two foreign ISM activists were wounded by Israeli gunfire, one of them seriously, during clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.    A 24-year-old American, Barry Avery, suffered a serious gunshot wound to the face, while a Danish man, Lasse Schmidt, 35, was wounded in the leg by shrapnel, medics said.    And last month, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old US national also volunteering with the ISM, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah as she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house.    The Israeli army said it was an "accident" and has yet to reveal the result of its investigation into her death.    Copyright 2003 AFP    13/04/2003    British Mother asks Israelis: Was my son shot Deliberately? By Daniel Foggo & Inigo Gilmore In Rafah. The Telegraph / UK    The family of a British peace protester, shot by an Israeli sniper as he shielded three young children, claimed yesterday that he appeared to have been deliberately targeted for assassination.    Tom Hurndall was hit in the head with a bullet from a rifle as he ushered two girls to safety in the Gaza Strip on Friday. His condition last night was still serious.    His mother Jocelyn told The Telegraph that she could see no other reason for the attack: "Tom was wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket. Apparently the watchtower housing the soldier who shot him wasn't too far away from him either. We are worried that he may have been deliberately targeted, otherwise it seems inexplicable."    Witnesses said Mr Hurndall, 21, had helped one young boy to safety and had gone back to shepherd two young girls out of the way of advancing Israeli forces when he was shot. Doctors at the Saroka Hospital, in Beer Sheva, say he has severe damage to the left side of his brain but is off the critical list.    The mother of the boy called him a hero. Fada Barhom said that Salame, seven, was playing football with his friends when suddenly there was the sound of gunfire.    "This young British man saved my son," she said. "He is a hero, he is a martyr and we want to thank the people like him who are coming to Palestine to try to protect us. My heart aches for his mother." Tom Hurndall's father Anthony, a property lawyer, was flying to Israel last night to visit his son and to demand an investigation. "It's getting to the stage where innocent Westerners are being killed and we have to take note," he said.    "Those involved have to be called to account. I expect answers and not a cover-up. I want to know who it was who fired this bullet and whatever possible pretext they can have. They have made a mistake if they think they can get away with it.    "I will talk to the British embassy and would like them to go and see what's happening on the ground."    Before he left Tom had spoken in favour of Israeli intervention in Palestine. "On the way to the airport to fly out to Baghdad he was discussing the situation in Israel and he was arguing in favour of the Israelis' political position," Mrs Hurndall said. "It is an irony that it is they who have now wounded him."    The Hurndalls, who live in Tufnell Park, north London, did not know that Tom was in the West Bank. He had gone originally to Baghdad to take photographs for his degreee. His sister, Sophie, 23, said: "We had not actually heard from Tom for two weeks and did not know where he was. We had no idea he was in Israel. He left Britain for Baghdad six weeks ago to take photographs for his degree course at Manchester Metropolitan University.    "I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago when he was in Jordan. As he left Iraq, the Jordanian authorities had confiscated most of his photographs which had annoyed him greatly and he was trying to decide whether to go to Syria or back to Iraq, so it was very surprising to hear that he was in Israel at all."    "Tom and his younger brother Freddie are very close and Freddie has been very affected. He is being very quiet," said Sophie. "Just on Friday he and I sent Tom an email asking why we hadn't heard from him and where he was. Freddie entitled it, 'Don't Get Shot'. The same day we got a call to tell us he'd been wounded."    The Israeli army has refused to comment on the incident. Tom Hurndall is the third peace protester to have been wounded or killed in recent weeks.    An American student, Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed to death last month by an Israeli armoured bulldozer and last week troops allegedly fired at Bryan Avery, 24, from New Mexico, hitting him in the face. Visit the related web page
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