This post brought a tear to the eye...

Israel's policy of murdering foreign journalists & activists



"Maybe it's stupid to do something like this and throw myself in so deep — as deep as I can," Tom Hurndall wrote in his diary on April 5. "But it's something I want to do. It isn't so much fear that I'm feeling now as a deep sense that things won't turn out so well this time." The next day, the 21-year-old British peace activist left Jerusalem for the Gaza Strip to act as a human shield to protect Palestinians from the Israeli army. And his premonition came true. On April 11, the unarmed Briton was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier, as he shepherded Palestinian children from an area under fire from Israeli tanks in Rafah.

He was wearing a distinctive bright orange jacket worn by activists.

Londoner Raphael Cohen, 37, who went with Hurndall to Rafah, says he was among a group of peace activists heading for the front line, intending to pitch a tent. As they were en route, Israeli gunfire began hitting a narrow passage where children were playing. Hurndall, wearing the fluorescent orange vest of a noncombatant, twice went to help the children, the second time to bring a little girl out. "As he was turning to do that, he got hit in the head," says Cohen, who claims there were no shots from the Palestinian side. "If there had been resistance fire, we would not have been there. We don't get involved in crossfire."

The Israelis tried for months to avoid having to bring the soldier to trial for Tom's murder, make up false claims such as he was shot by Palestenian gunmen etc. They have lied in the past and they tried to lie to the world again but this time, the reaction was strong enough to force them to investigate Tom's murder.

It was also revealed that the cunt who shot Tom, tried to cover up his crime by asking for his commander's permission to shoot an "armed man" moments after he had already fired the fatal shot.

And today, ex-sergeant Taysir Hayb was convicted at a military court in Ashkelon for Tom's murder in April 2003. Hayb will be sentenced at a later date.

The BBC Reports:
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The court was told Hayb fired at Mr Hurndall from an Israeli army watchtower, using a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight.

Witnesses said Mr Hurndall, from north London, had been escorting children away from gunfire when he was hit in the head by a single shot.

The Israeli army initially disputed this account, but under pressure from Mr Hurndall's family and the British government it ordered a full investigation. It later indicted Hayb, a member of Israel's Bedouin Arab minority.

The defendant was led out of the court in handcuffs and tried to attack a number of photographers and cameramen filming him.
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Tom's crime? Helping defenseless palestenian children? or having witnessed Israeli tanks firing on unarmed children? Yasser Arafat gave him the Honour of a Martyr. That's exactly what he was.



Tom is not the only foreign peace activist to be seriously injured by security forces in Israel. Days before that, Rachel Corrie from the US was crushed to death by a bulldozer.

'Rachel knelt down in its way. She was 10-20 metres in front of the bulldozer, waving her hands and shouting for it to stop, the only object for many metres, directly in it's view. They were in Radio contact with a tank that had a profile view of the situation.

They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit. They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time. Every second I believed they would stop but they never did.' Eye Witness Account

Rachel's Crime: Trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing a Palestenian house.

'I do believe it was intentional. I saw it, and I know he saw her, I know he did, and I know he knew she was still under the bulldozer when it backed up without raising its blade. I don't know if he wanted to kill her, or if he was just focused on doing his work and didn't care if he killed her or not, I don't know which is scarier. I don't feel like telling the whole detailed story right now. I promise that for the record I will tell it in detail, but give me a few days. I just want to quickly dispel a few myths you may have heard in the media. She did not "trip and fall" in front of the bulldozer. (Watch in pictures) She sat down in front of it, well in advance, wearing one of the orange flouro jackets I got in Amsterdam. (By the way, I took the pictures you may have seen of her, standing with the megaphone in front of the bulldozer, and the ones of her friends helping her.)' JOE SMITH EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

Then there was Miller, 34, was killed in May 2003 as he filmed at night in the southern Gaza Strip. He was carrying a white flag and shouted to the troops that he was a British journalist. The Guardian reported that when prosecutor general, Avihai Mandelblitt, cleared the unidentified officer of Miller's death last month through lack of evidence, he should be disciplined for misusing his weapon and changing his story several times. But instead the army refused to do so, ruling that he "was operating in very difficult circumstances, including taking incoming fire from terrorists, and concluded that he acted appropriately".

There's also been the case of Israeli Army shooting at British MP's.

These are just the cases that receive worldwide publicity because there's a foreigner involved while hundreds of Palestenians die every day, un-noticed. Civil liberties group Human Rights Watch last week accused Israel of investigating less than 5% of hundreds of cases of Palestinians killed since 2000. When will the world take notice?