Activist protecting kids in Gaza critically shot
Saturday, April 12, 2003
seattlepi.nwsource.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli sniper shot and critically injured
a 21-year-old British activist as he tried to protect
Palestinian children near a roadblock in the southern Gaza
Strip, his organization said, citing witnesses.
Thomas Hurndall was declared brain dead after arriving at
Rafah Hospital, said Dr. Ali Musa.
The Israeli army said that it was investigating the report.
But it said that it knew of only one instance in which
soldiers shot in that area yesterday, to kill what the army
said was a Palestinian who had opened fire on an Israeli
post.
Hurndall of Manchester, England, was in the Rafah refugee
camp with eight other members of the International
Solidarity Movement, a group that uses non-violent
methods to impede Israeli army actions in the West Bank
and Gaza. Snipers opened fire from a tower to the east, said
Tom Wallace, a spokesman for the group, citing members
who were present.
Wallace said that Hurndall spotted a child who was in the
open, and retrieved that child before leaving a protected
area to escort two other children to safety. "As he went to
get the other children, he was shot in the back of his
head," Wallace said.
Khalil Hamra, a photographer on assignment for The
Associated Press, said the children were not throwing rocks
at the troops and that he saw nothing that would have
provoked the troops.
The shooting occurred between 4:30 and 5 p.m., during
daylight hours. Wallace said that Hurndall was wearing a
bright orange jacket with reflective strips, and that no
Palestinians were firing in the area.
Hurndall arrived in this area only a week ago and was
based in Rafah, Wallace said. He said that Hurndall had
been volunteering as a human shield in Iraq but left
because he thought Saddam Hussein was exploiting the
volunteers.
He was the second activist shot in a week. Last Saturday,
Brian Avery, 24, of Albuquerque, N.M., was shot in the face
and seriously injured when he stepped into the street
during an Israeli curfew to investigate gunshots in the West
Bank city of Jenin. However, an Israeli security official said
there were gunbattles in the area and that he might have
been struck by a Palestinian bullet.
And a third member -- Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia,
Wash. -- was killed a month ago while trying to stop an
Israeli army bulldozer.
Also yesterday, the army said it had eased checkpoint
restrictions in the West Bank town of Jericho after local
police turned in a stock of weapons that included
explosives and an anti-tank rocket.
Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erekat disputed the
claim, saying he hadn't heard of a weapons handover and
that checkpoint rules have been relaxed for months.
Also yesterday, Israeli attack helicopters fired missiles into
a cemetery during a daylong search for suspected Islamic
militants that led to arrests of four people from a Bedouin
farming community.
The three brothers and another man were later released.
No one appeared to have been injured in the attack. The
Israeli army declined to comment.
On the Gaza-Egypt border, Palestinians fired anti-tank
grenades on an Israeli military post, though no one was
injured, an army spokesman said.
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