Vigil for Murdered British Peace Activist

A candle-lit vigil outside No 10 Downing Street will be held at ??6pm on Thursday 13th January in memory of Tom Hurndall, the murdered British peace activist.

In April 2003 Tom Hurndall tried to shield some children from Israeli gunfire when he was shot in the head by an Israeli Army sniper in the occupied city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Tom never regained consciousness and died nine months later in a London hospital on January 13th 2004. At the time of the shooting he was just 22 years old. The children he shielded survived.

An Israeli army investigation concluded that the shooting had been legitimate and that the soldier was blameless. However, under pressure from the Hurndall family, who conducted their own investigation, the soldier who shot Tom has now admitted that he lied about what had happened. He had originally said that Tom was carrying a gun and was shooting towards the Israeli army watchtower. Although he now acknowledges that he knew that Tom was unarmed, Sgt Taysir does not accept that he did anything wrong, claiming that he was under orders to fire even on unarmed people:

"'They tell us all the time to fire; that there is approval. All the troops [in Rafah] fire without approval at anyone who crosses a red line."

In May last year, in a very unusual step, the Israeli army began court-martial proceedings against Sgt Taysir and another soldier, who this week was jailed for five and a half months for lying about the circumstances of the shooting.

The case is ongoing, but there is widespread feeling that Sergeant Taysir is a scapegoat for the Israeli Army's notorious ill-discipline and contempt for civilian life in the occupied territories. Since the start of the second Intifada (uprising), the Israeli army and armed settlers have killed over 3,600 Palestinians, the vast majority unarmed innocents, one fifth of them children.

When he was shot, Tom Hurndall was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led international peace group that sends volunteers from all over the world to work with Palestinian communities in non-violent resistance to the illegal occupation. A talented photographer, Hurndall took pictures of the peace activists in action, along with images of the Palestinian people trying to live their lives in the midst of military occupation. Undaunted by his death, thousands of people continue to
support the ISM and volunteer to travel to Palestine and peacefully protest there.

The ISM London group said:

"The vigil is to remember Tom who was our friend and colleague, and express our deep sympathy and thanks to the Hurndall family. As Tom would have wished, we also remember the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have died as a result of Israeli's illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We urge the British Government to remember the murder of one of its citizens, and to maintain pressure on Israeli to give up this evil illegal occupation that has killed so many innocent people."

For more information see:

 http://www.tomhurndall.co.uk

 http://www.ism-london.org.uk