Shot British peace activist dies

[Salem6]

A British peace activist shot in the head while observing the Israeli army in Gaza last year has died in hospital.

Tom Hurndall, 22, of north London, had been in a coma since being shot in a Palestinian refugee camp.


Mr Hurndall had been in a vegetative state since the shooting

An Israeli soldier has already been indicted on six charges, including one of aggravated assault.

Mr Hurndall was with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group which campaigns against Israeli occupation using non-violence.

Mr Hurndall's family now want a murder charge to be brought.

The soldier initially said he had returned fire at a man armed with a pistol - but under interrogation admitted firing a shot near an unarmed civilian, according to the Israeli army.



Mr Hurndall was overcome by pneumonia at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, in south-west London.

The Israeli Embassy in London said charges had been brought against the soldier after a "full and independent investigation".

It said in a statement it was " deeply sorry " to learn of the death of Mr Hurndall, a former photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The statement said: "The Israeli Government views this tragic event with the utmost severity, and is acting to ensure that justice is served. The Israeli Government is fully co-operating with the British Government on this matter."

But Mr Hurndall's family, from Tufnell Park, north London, have said any Israeli army investigation would be a whitewash.

"We're hugely relieved that we've got this far, that the soldier has been charged," Mr Hurndall's sister, Sophie Hurndall, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

But she warned: "We've yet to see what his sentence is going to be.





"The army has been the whole way along with this trying to get itself off the hook, and its soldiers.

"What happens in the occupied territories is covered up at any costs."

However, Ms Hurndall said, it now appeared to her that the army was cutting its losses and "hanging this soldier out to dry".



Relief that her brother's ordeal was now over was mixed with great sadness, she said.


Ms Hurndall said her brother had been pulling two children to safety when he was shot.

British cameraman James Miller was shot dead in the same area on 2 May, also by Israeli soldiers.

In March, an Israeli bulldozer crushed US activist Rachel Corrie to death in Rafah as she tried to protest against the demolition of a house.


Video:-

The BBC's Orla Guerin
"Witnesses say he was shot in the head trying to help Palestinian children"news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39738000/rm/_39738335_hurndall13_guerin_vi.ram

[Salem6]

Tom Hurndall was working as a photo journalist when he was shot

Although Tom Hurndall is often described as a peace activist, he was actually working as an amateur photo journalist when he was shot in Gaza in April 2003.

He had joined protests against the war in Iraq, but his mother Jocelyn has said he was not that political - although he did like to help the underdog.

His family remember the 22-year-old as someone who squared up to a mugger trying to steal a boy's mobile phone near his home in Tufnell Park, north London.

His sister Sophie told the BBC: "Tom was somebody who made everybody laugh, he was intelligent, witty, caring - the kind of person who was always sticking up for anybody who was in trouble."

A photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University, he had travelled to Iraq in February as an amateur photo-journalist.

But Sophie later said he had been unable to get a visa as a photographer and the only way he could get to Baghdad was to go with some British "human shields".

From Baghdad he moved to Jordan where he met the pro-Palestinian group, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), whose members volunteer as buffers between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.

His family say his diaries show he was clear headed and went with an open mind to Rafah, determined to draw his own conclusions about what was happening to Palestinian civilians.

But he was deeply affected by the sight of a young boy he had photographed being shot in the shoulder.

Eyewitnesses are said to have seen him pulling two Palestinian children to safety in Rafah when he was shot in April 2003.

He was flown back to the UK and has been in a vegetative state at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in Putney, south-west London. He died there on 14 January.

His mother Jocelyn told the BBC she was extremely proud of her son's decision to go out to Iraq and Gaza.

She said: "He first brought this up in December and, from a mother's perspective, I hoped it might disappear.

"But Tom did a lot of research into the situation over there and he was quite determined to go. So all we could do was warn him of the dangers.

"The spirit of Tom was to seek out injustice. You can't take that away from someone."